The Number of Configurations of Radii that Can Occur in Compact Packings of the Plane with Discs of n Sizes is Finite

By a compact packing of the plane by discs, P, we mean a collection of closed discs in the plane with pairwise disjoint interior so that, for every disc C∈P\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$C\in P$$\end{document}, there exists a sequence of discs D0,…,Dm-1∈P\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$D_{0},\ldots ,D_{m-1}\in P$$\end{document} so that each Di\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$D_i$$\end{document} is tangent to both C and Di+1modm\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$D_{i+1\,mod \,m}$$\end{document}. We prove, for every n∈N\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$n\in \mathbb {N}$$\end{document}, that there exist only finitely many tuples (r0,r1,…,rn-1)∈Rn\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$(r_{0},r_{1},\ldots ,r_{n-1})\in \mathbb {R}^{n}$$\end{document} with 0<r0<r1<…<rn-1=1\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$0<r_{0}<r_{1}<\ldots <r_{n-1}=1$$\end{document} that can occur as the radii of the discs in any compact packing of the plane with n distinct sizes of disc.