In addition to what the other commenter said, it’s important to understand the scale. Cutting edge research 600 years ago was solving cubic equations. Today, cu

In addition to what the other commenter said, it’s important to understand the scale. Cutting edge research 600 years ago was solving cubic equations. Today, cutting edge research requires potentially years of advanced study to understand the objects involved. There are more mathematicians alive today than at any point in human history, and their work has become specialized to a tremendous degree. Gone are the days where one mathematician could do substantial new work in a dozen diverse areas. So, in short, the fact that historically lots of pure math has not found use, the specialized nature of modern research math, the volume of work being out out, and an irreverence for applications(again, this is _pure_ math) leads me to be doubtful that even a moderate amount of modern pure math research will ever be useful in any practical sense.