How many unit circles would it take to completely cover a square of side length 3?
This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try
refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and,
finally, (c)
loading the
non-javascript version of this page
. We're sorry about the hassle.
It clearly cannot be done with four circles: If four circles cover all the vertices, then they will not cover the center, since the center is at a distance of 2 3 > 2 from the vertices. It is easy(and fun!) to cover the square with five circles, though, with a bit of wiggle room.