Not only that, but the optimal solution may involve packing at an angle, the most obvious being fitting a candy bar that is too long across the package, in diag

Not only that, but the optimal solution may involve packing at an angle, the most obvious being fitting a candy bar that is too long across the package, in diagonal. If you look at some of the best square packings, the results can be surprisingly messy[1], and few of them have been proven. It is clear that optimal algorithms are out of the question, which is the conclusion of the article, even with the constraints of orthogonal placement of simple boxes. In fact, in real life, when taking into account packages that are not simple boxes, items that can be squished a little and those that shouldn't be, etc... I wouldn't be surprised if humans were actually better than computers. [1] https://kingbird.myphotos.cc/packing/squares_in_squares.html https://kingbird.myphotos.cc/packing/squares_in_squares.html