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It is not how science works. You can't predict what might be useful. 1940 Hardy labels number theory (his own area of mathematics) as useless 1977 RSA You
by d0mine 8y ago
It is not how science works. You can't predict what might be useful.
1940 Hardy labels number theory (his own area of mathematics) as useless
1977 RSA
You can't imagine the modern internet without cryptography.
- bdcravens 8y agoYou can have imagination without implementation.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoHardy's statement was philosophical, not a scientific prediction. Encryption was already an important science by 1940
- jacobmoe 8y agoMy favorite example of the unexpected practical benefits of primary research is the first paragraph from the original proposal for the web: https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html > This proposal concerns the management of general information about accelerators and experiments at CERN. It discusses the problems of loss of information about complex evolving systems and derives a solution based on a distributed hypertext system.