Combinatorial geometry

the long version

How many objects of a given shape and size can be packed into a large box of fixed volume? Can one plant n trees in an orchard, not all along the same line, so that every line determined by two trees will pass through a third? These questions, raised by Hilbert and Sylvester roughly one hundred years ago, have generated a lot of interest among professional and amateur mathematicians and scientists. They have led to the birth of a new mathematical discipline with close ties to classical geometry and number theory, and with many applications in coding theory, potential theory, computational geometry, computer graphics, robotics, etc. Combinatorial Geometry offers a self-contained introduction to this rapidly developing field, where combinatorial and probabilistic (counting) methods play a crucial role.