Thread: Packing of Particles in Solids-space Lattices

Technically, this question is from a chemistry course, but I have a question about finding the volume of spheres.

We had to do an experiment with Marshshmallows, plums or anything spherical.
And this is how we learned about three types of packing
-hexagonal closest packing
-face-centred or cubic closest packing
-body-centred packing

One of the things we have to figure out is the density in units/cm^3.
It askes : If a box fit tightly around the three layers, what would its volume be? Assuming a mass of 1 unit per sphere, calculate the density in units/cm^3.

I'm sort of lost when it comes to figuring out the volume and any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!

you arent suppose to calculate the sphere's volume

you have to imagine the box fits 3 layers, and you have to calculate the box's volume, because the lattice volume is the sphere's volume plus the empty space volume.