The Thomson problem is to determine the stable equilibrium positions of n classical electrons constrained to move on the surface of a sphere and repelling each other by an inverse square law. Exact solutions for n = 2 to 8 are known, but n = 9 and 11 are still unknown. This problem is related to spherical codes, which are arrangements of points on a sphere such that the minimum distance between any pair of points is maximized.

sphere point picking | spherical code