>the big challenge is persuading a company that this is actually possible I wanted to say this but didn't want to be presume too much, so thank you for saying

>the big challenge is persuading a company that this is actually possible I wanted to say this but didn't want to be presume too much, so thank you for saying it -- getting a foot in the door seems a problem. I'd like to think that I'd have strengths similar to your physicist friend, but I can't prove that right now. I work in algebraic geometry. There is an "applied" subfield but I have very little knowledge of what it is those people do, and my experience is that mathematicians have a funny definition of application. Reading some papers tomorrow couldn't hurt, though. Of course I still want to work on interesting problems.