> I thought that was a job in research and development? The type of research R&D shops perform is (reasonably) constrained by the profit motive. There is value

> I thought that was a job in research and development? The type of research R&D shops perform is (reasonably) constrained by the profit motive. There is value to society by empowering individuals to pursue topics in a broader sphere. Even economic benefits, though I philosophically disagree that for an idea to have merit it needs to be profitable. Just a random example; modern cryptography comes from "the mathematics of the algebraic structure of elliptic curves over finite fields." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_curve_cryptography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_curve_cryptography Somebody was reading up on that field of research and discovered it could be used to encrypt messages. Out of that blossomed a whole new sector of the economy. But the mathematicians who initially pioneered the work had no idea it would ever be used that way. They were just happily studying one of a thousand random and seemingly pointless avenues of mathematical exploration.