The guidlines for the fqxi essay explicitly prioritize first of all "interesting" and secondly "relevant". No-where is it mentioned that these essays be based o

The guidlines for the fqxi essay explicitly prioritize first of all "interesting" and secondly "relevant". No-where is it mentioned that these essays be based on reality or in any way practical. In my opinion, it's very typical of academia: they are in it for the buzz, not for actually coming to any practical conclusions about anything. (Not that they are actually averse to practical applications/reality.)