How many circles can fit within a circle?

A quick internet search did not find any Excel or VBA code for this. I did find several discussions, as this kind of "packing problem" is not new.

I don't know if any of us here are strong enough mathematicians to know what algorithms are used for this kind of problem. In my internet search, I found a couple of potentially useful references: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CirclePacking.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_packing_in_a_circle
http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~ronspubs/98_01_circles.pdf
Perhaps one of the sample packings described in these will provide you with the information needed to solve your problem. The last link makes reference to a couple of algorithms they used to optimize circle in circle packings. One of these algorithms might be useable for your problem.

Here is the example file I posted at cross post on the other forum
http://www.thecodecage.com/forumz/mi...otherwise.html