How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

is a phrase that when used in modern contexts can be used as a metaphor for wasting time debating topics of no practical value or on questions whose answers hold no intellectual consequence when more urgent concerns accumulate.

[1] The phrase was originally used in a theological context by 17th-century Protestants to mock medieval scholastics such as Duns Scotus[2] and Thomas Aquinas.

[5][6] In Italian,[7] French,[8] Spanish and Portuguese, the conundrum of useless scholarly debates is linked to a similar question of whether or not angels are sexless.

James Franklin raised the scholarly issue mentioned a 17th-century reference in William Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants (1637)[9] accusing unnamed scholastics of debating "whether a Million of Angels may not fit upon a Needle's point."

284) Peter Harrison (2016) has suggested that the first reference to angels dancing on a needle's point occurs in an expository work by an English priest, William Sclater (1575–1626)[10] in his An Exposition with Notes upon the First Epistle to the Thessalonians (1619).

"[13] Dorothy L. Sayers argued that the question was "simply a debating exercise" and that the answer that was "usually adjudged correct" was stated, "Angels are pure intelligences, not material, but limited, so that they have location in space, but not extension.