The deflationary nominalist offers various considerations to the effect that there is no genuine philosophical problem in the success of applied mathematics (Azzouni 2000). Once particular attention is given to implicational opacity—our inability to see, before a proof is offered, the consequences of various mathematical statements—much of the alleged surprise in the successful application of mathematics should vanish. Ultimately, the so-called problem of the application of mathematics—of understanding how it is possible that mathematics can be successfully applied to the physical world should—is an artificially designed issue rather than a genuine problem.