Random close packing

Okay kiddo, imagine we have a big box of different shaped toys like balls and blocks. We want to fit as many of these toys as we can into the box without any spaces between them.

This is called packing, and when we do it randomly by just dumping the toys into the box without any order, it's called random close packing.

Now, think about how you might try to pack the toys. If you just drop them in, they might leave spaces between them and you won't be able to fit as many toys in the box. So, you might try to stack the toys neatly on top of each other to fill up the box completely.

But, no matter how hard you try, there might still be some spaces between the toys. This is because different shaped toys can't fit perfectly next to each other.

Scientists study how different shaped objects can be packed together without leaving any spaces, but they've found that there is no perfect way to do it. So, random close packing is a way of describing how objects might naturally settle together with some spaces between them.

It's kind of like when you try to fit all your toys into your toy box, sometimes they just don't fit perfectly and you might have to leave some spaces between them. Just like that, random close packing is when objects can't fit perfectly next to each other, so they settle together randomly with some spaces in between.