Welcome to ELI5’s first “Ask Me Anything!” We’re inviting expert educators to respond to your questions here on ELI5. Today the topic will be mathematics, brought to you by University of Oxford maths professor Tom Crawford (u/tomrocksmaths). Dr. Crawford has asked us to share [his video about exponential growth, and why it’s so important to take every step to slow the spread of COVID-19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUVERo2xpH4), and [another video about the SIR model for epidemics](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKMHhm2Zbkw).
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In: Mathematics
I have a question about Fermat’s Last Theorem. Let me phrase it in terms of the cubic. Say we have a cube and two (imaginary) smaller cubes in the upper left and lower right corners. We expand these two cubes at any rate until they touch, then keep expanding them (they pass through each other) until the volume of the cube of their intersection equals the volume of the interior of the large cube NOT occupied by either of the smaller two cubes. Then obviously the sum of the volumes of the two smaller cubes equals the volume of the large cube. So essentially FLT states that these cubes cannot be measured in any unit such that the lengths will be commensurate. My question is, have many of the failed attempts at “simple” proofs attacked the problem from the angle of incommensurate measure, ie, is this an idiot question, not an insight?
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