“It was like that: the 18 planets existed, and then one more planet appeared and this was not the 19th”
Image © Pavel Pepperstein
The drawing makes ironic play with the theme of mathematical paradoxes. Modern mathematics and physics are reminiscent of ancient theologies, which in past ages often confounded their initiates with insoluble riddles. The answer to this particular logical paradox could be extremely simple – the last planet is not the nineteenth, because it is not a planet, it is an astronomical object with an external resemblance to a planet, but its nature is actually different, and as yet unexplored. It could possibly be a sphere moulded out of bread, known in Russian folklore as “kolobok”, which has fled along some fairy-tale pathway straight into outer space.
