One of the most remarkable and beautiful theorems in coding theory is Gleason's 1970 theorem about the weight enumerators of self-dual codes and their connections with invariant theory, which has inspired hundreds of papers about generalizations and applications of this theorem to different types of codes. This self-contained book develops a new theory which is powerful enough to include all the earlier generalizations.

The third edition of this definitive and popular book continues to pursue the question: what is the most efficient way to pack a large number of equal spheres in n-dimensional Euclidean space? The authors also examine such related issues as the kissing number problem, the covering problem, the quantizing problem, and the classification of lattices and quadratic forms. There is also a description of the applications of these questions to other areas of mathematics and science such as number theory, coding theory, group theory, analogue-to-digital conversion and data compression, n-dimensional crystallography, dual theory and superstring theory in physics. New and of special interest is a report on some recent developments in the field, and an updated and enlarged supplementary bibliography with over 800 items.

One of the most remarkable and beautiful theorems in coding theory is Gleason's 1970 theorem about the weight enumerators of self-dual codes and their connections with invariant theory, which has inspired hundreds of papers about generalizations and applications of this theorem to different types of codes. This self-contained book develops a new theory which is powerful enough to include all the earlier generalizations.

The third edition of this definitive and popular book continues to pursue the question: what is the most efficient way to pack a large number of equal spheres in n-dimensional Euclidean space? The authors also examine such related issues as the kissing number problem, the covering problem, the quantizing problem, and the classification of lattices and quadratic forms. There is also a description of the applications of these questions to other areas of mathematics and science such as number theory, coding theory, group theory, analogue-to-digital conversion and data compression, n-dimensional crystallography, dual theory and superstring theory in physics. New and of special interest is a report on some recent developments in the field, and an updated and enlarged supplementary bibliography with over 800 items.