The problem of finding configurations of points that are “optimally-distributed” on a set appears in a number of guises including best-packing problems, coding theory, geometrical modeling, statistical sampling, radial basis approximation and golf-ball design (i.e., where to put the dimples). This talk will focus on classical and recent results concerning asymptotic geometrical properties of N-point configurations on a compact metric set A interacting through a weighted inverse power law for large values of N. This is joint work with S. Borodachov, E. Saff and T. Whitehouse.