In potential theory and optimization, polarization constants (also known as Chebyshev constants) are solutions to a max-min problem for potentials. Originally, these problems were introduced by a Japanese mathematician . Recently these problems got some attention as they can help to generate random points on smooth manifolds (in particular, unit sphere) with prescribed probability density function. The problem of finding the polarization constant is connected to the problem of energy minimization. In particular, for connections with the Thomson problem, see and .