I recently got my hands on a book about the career of a esteemed professor and his students. One of the life lessons of one of his students was: "If you want to

I recently got my hands on a book about the career of a esteemed professor and his students. One of the life lessons of one of his students was: "If you want to be called a mathematician prepare to be funded like a mathematician" Pure theoretical physicist might be in a comparable budget, but I think it is true that the lower expectations on math research is partly due to how cheap it is to fund.