Vacuum packing preventing the evaporation of volatile components. It is also commonly used to store dry foods over a long period of time, such as cereals, nuts, cured meats, cheese, smoked fish, coffee, and potato chips (crisps). On a more short term basis, vacuum packing can also be used to store fresh foods, such as vegetables, meats, and liquids, because it inhibits bacterial growth. Vacuum packing greatly reduces the bulk of non-food items. For example, clothing and bedding can be stored in bags evacuated with a domestic vacuum cleaner or a dedicated vacuum sealer. This technique is sometimes used to compact household
Circle packing in an equilateral triangle removing any single circle from the optimal hexagonal packing of circles. This conjecture is now known to be true for . Minimum solutions for the side length of the triangle: A closely related problem is to cover the equilateral triangle with a fixed number of equal circles, having as small a radius as possible. Circle packing in an equilateral triangle Circle packing in an equilateral triangle is a packing problem in discrete mathematics where the objective is to pack "n" unit circles into the smallest possible equilateral triangle. Optimal solutions are known for "n" < 13 and for any triangular