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> And if you want to step one level more, there is mathematics. The beauty of mathematics, however, is the fact that great discoveries can be made without spen
by qayxc 6y ago
> And if you want to step one level more, there is mathematics.
The beauty of mathematics, however, is the fact that great discoveries can be made without spending billions on it.
There's little public backlash for funding a handful of people who quietly scribble on blackboards or humbly request a few hours of time on the university's supercomputer.
Compare that to particle physicists who'd like to have a new super-collider or AI researchers who can easily burn 6-figures worth of compute in a single experiment.
- sriku 6y agoAgreed and that's not the point about mathematics. The point was about ascertaining the impact of a mathematical breakthrough .. which is harder than a scientific one, because the idea of what is a "breakthrough" is usually defined within the domain of mathematics itself. A good example is all the number theoretic work, elliptic curves etc. which underpin much of secure communication today, but started off as "pure" in the sense of "won't find applications". That was easy. Now what's the impact of the breakthrough proof of Fermat's last theorem by Wiles?