The Last Theory... Or Was It?
- Lara M Watson
- May 17, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: May 19, 2023
Tucked away in their usual window-side table, basking under the warm sunshine, Nix and Grant bantered over what education/torture would be inflicted today.
“Seriously, though, anything other than obscure number theory, please. I am at my limit.” Nix said exasperated.
Grant pouted. “But there’s so much we haven’t even touched on!”
“Grant, please. We can… look, we can come back to it eventually, but can we please talk about something that is actually real?” Nix asked, slightly desperate.
“Ugh, fine.” He muttered. “Let’s do, hm, Einstein for the next month, alright?”
“Thank you!” She exclaimed in relief.
However, just as she was relaxing back into her chair, he added blithely, “But that means we’ve still got today to finish off.”
Nix collapsed forward, forehead hitting the table with a dull thunk. “Alright,” She groaned, straightening up with a fortifying breath, “what’s on the agenda today?”
Stabbing at a piece of cake, Grant replied cheerfully. “Fermat!”
Cocking her head, Nix thought back. “… I vaguely recall you saying something about a ‘Last Theory’…?”
“Mhm.” Grant nodded. “Yeah, the famous Last Theorem. Which, ya know, kind of… wasn’t.”
“Wasn’t what?” Nix echoed blankly.
“The last.” Grant amended. “See, round about, uhm, 1637, Fermat scribbled in the margins of this book…”
“Wait, what?! 1637?” Nix startled. “I thought he was modern!”
Grant blinked at her for half a second, then burst into laughter. “Modern? He was running around with Shakespeare, he was!” He chortled. “Where d’ya get that idea?”
“From you, obviously.” Nix huffed, flushing. “I don’t know, you talk about him like he’s still alive, I guess…”
“Ehh…” Grant shrugged. “Probably cause up until very recently some of his stuff still had no proof. I mean, he claimed he had proof. Like I was saying earlier, one of the famous bits about the ‘Last’ or Great Theorem is he scribbled in the margin of the book that he had found a proof.”
“Uhuh. So what was this ‘Great Theorem’?”
“Essentially, that it is impossible for the sum of two cubes to be a cubed number, if the natural number is greater than 2.” Grant stated concisely.
“…” Nix looked deeply into her mug, searching for patience, or perhaps the will to live.
Grant grunted, heaving himself out of his chair and circling the table to stand by Nix’s shoulder. “Here, I’ll show you the equation, makes it all neat and tidy.” He said, tugging her napkin away and scribbling over it.
“There ya go.” He nodded, satisfied, as he went back to his seat.
“I appreciate this… thing, Grant, I really do.” Nix told him dryly.
“Why do I hear a ‘but’ in there?” Grant mused out loud.
Nix smirked. “But it still doesn’t make a lick of sense to me.”
He sighed. “How come you’re happier with the maybe this maybe that world of quantum weirdness, but bloody allergic to number theory? I don’t get it.”
Nix smiled wryly at him. “That’s because you’re brain works cheerfully on numbers. I need to be able to see what those numbers actually mean to get some idea of what you’re talking about. And this just isn’t doing it for me.”
“Naw, I could’na tell.” He drawled at her sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Fine, then. If it’s real-world effects you’re looking for…”
“It certainly helps.” She muttered under her breath. “So… the theory was to prove something… wasn’t possible?” She asked hesitantly.
He blinked at her. “Well, yeah.”
“Huh. That’s a first.” She said.
“What, really?” He asked, genuinely surprised. “Can’t have been, I must’ve mentioned something else.”
Nix shook her head. “Not that I can recall. Most of the stuff we go over is ideas about how the universe works on a fundamental level, right? Kind of a yes or no question.”
“But Fermat really is important if you’re looking a maths as a whole. He’s kind of a great grandfather? Hm. Yeah, sounds about right.” Grant protested.
Nix hummed a query, eyebrows raised.
“The Ancient Greeks were the founders, Newton was the grandfather, and Fermat’s kind of in the middle. See, he – or, well, the theories he came up with, and there were dozens of ‘em – kinda gave a measuring stick for how mathematical problems are measured, since a lot of the time you’d need a new tool to solve something. He wasn’t really a mathematician, per se, ya know, for all he dabbled in analytical geometry. He wasn’t the big genius that goes down in history like Newton or Einstein. But those two wouldn’t have been able to do what they did without the groundwork Fermat lay down, see?”
Nix tilted her head. “Sort of… I get where you’re going.” She said, before shrugging and waving a hand. “Still, though, I hate to say it, but. Um. I still don’t really get the importance of why you can or can’t do something in maths, okay, and I doubt I’ll appreciate it any more than I can now. Why is this so important?”
“It doesn’t apply to anything, Nix. It’s pure mathematics. Working on the problem results in new ideas and methods, see?”
Nix shook her head slowly.
“Like a spanner with a different head.” Grant explained. “It’s a new tool, a new way to explore things in mathematical terms that you wouldn’t have been able to solve before, or even think or before. The blank area on the map where you go, look, we can go over here now!”
“Ah. Right, a new tool in the maths box of bits. I get it. A bit.” She said.
“There you go, finally.” Grant muttered.
Nix waved a hand. “What did you mean earlier, though, that Fermat’s last theorem wasn’t the last?”
“Oh, right. It was published after he died, see, which is why it’s called the ‘last’. But it wasn’t the last thing he developed, see, so, technically…”
“Uhuh. Technically.” She side-eyed him.
“What?” Grant widened his eyes innocently as he looked at her over the table.
“… This whole torture was just for you to offload your pet peeve, wasn’t it?” Nix accused.
“Maaaybe.” Grant hedged, laughing as he leaned back to doge her swipe. “Only a little bit! A teeny bit of it.”
“Ugh.” Nix exclaimed in disgust, settling back down.
Grant snickered quietly to himself as she drained the last of her coffee.
“You better pull out something totally different next time, Grant.” Nix said accusingly, pointing sternly at him.
“Sure, sure. Hey, we can dive back into Einstein.” He replied perkily.
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