Fermat's Last Theorem Is Trivially True
A philosopher tells Andrew Wiles that Fermat's Last Theorem is trivially true because numbers don't exist.
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Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2020-02-17-fermat-s-last-theorem-is-trivially-true/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
Wiles: "I did it! It took seven years of utter solitude, but I proved Fermat's Last Theorem!" Philosopher: "Uh… I hate to break it to you, Professor Wiles, but we already proved that."
Wiles: "What? How?" Philosopher: "Well, in the last 7 years, philosophers have converged on the idea that math's abstractions don't exist. Not in any real way. Hence, it is trivially true that there are no whole number solutions to aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ, because there are no numbers!"
Wiles: "So the whole job of philosophy is to argue that interesting questions are trivial?" Philosopher: "Not at all! Sometimes we argue that trivial questions are interesting!"