Fermat's last theorem and Springfield Theory...

And you thought the Simpsons was nothing but a stupid cartoon! Well, maybe Homer got his job at the Springfield Nuclear Power plant because he has a PhD in Mathematics!? He sure seems to be doing a better job than our Eskom employees!

Do yourself a favour, get out that old Texas Instruments scientific calculator and work out the following equation 1782(to the power of 12) + 1841 (to the power of 12)... And, so what is your answer? Yup, 1922 to the power of 12. So what? Well, this equation - which featured in the 1995 Halloween Episode of the Simpsons seems to have disproved Fermat's last theorem! The answer is mathematically impossible, since the left hand side is an even number, while the right hand side is an odd number! It must be a paradox!

For the mathematically uninitiated, Fermat's last theorem says

for any exponent n bigger than 2, there are no nonzero whole numbers a, b, and c for which an + bn = cn.

Would it surprise you to discover that two of the writers on the Simpsons have PhD's? Ken Keeler has a PhD in applied Maths, and Jeff Westbrook has a PhD in Computer science.

So, perhaps I could get a job drawing cartoons for the 'New Dimension'!?

If you're interested to read the whole story you can find it here.