Another Better Lower Bound for N=17 Square Packing

The smallest square that can contain 17 unit squares satisfies 4.4452... ≤ s(17) ≤ 4.6756..., with recent work raising the lower bound to 4.5058... by adding weighted point configurations and a refined computational check. Trevor Green’s 2000 proof used 16 unavoidable points, while Sam Burns’ approach employed 268 weighted points to tighten the bound.