Picard: "Fermat's last theorem. When Pierre de Fermat died they found this equation scrawled in the margin of his notes. X to the nth plus Y to the nth equals Z to the nth, where n is greater than 2, which he said had no solution in whole numbers. But he also added this phrase. Remarkable proof."

Riker: "There was no proof included."

Picard: "For the eight hundred years people have been trying to solve it."

Riker: "Including you."

Picard: "I find it stimulating. Also, it puts things in perspective. In our arrogance we feel we are so advanced, and yet we cannot unravel a simple knot tied by a part-time French mathematician working alone, without a computer."

Riker: "None of it makes any sense."

Picard: "Like Fermat's theorem, it's a puzzle we may never solve."

While in the advanced Star Trek Universe, Fermat's last theorem is still a brainteaser, in our universe it has been solved in 1994 by British mathematician Sir Andrew Wiles.

. Annals of Mathematics, 141 (1995), 443-551, Pierre de Fermat, Andrew John Wile, Modular elliptic curves and Fermat’s Last Theorem By Andrew John Wiles

. Solving Fermat: Andrew Wiles