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> I love when really smart people spend a lot of time and effort doing completely useless things. Many scientific discoveries happen this way. Number theory wa
by bawolff 3y ago
> I love when really smart people spend a lot of time and effort doing completely useless things.
Many scientific discoveries happen this way. Number theory was originally considered useless but now powers basically all public key crypto.
- tombert 3y agoThere’s that quote Adam Savage always says that goes something like “the difference between ‘science’ and ‘goofing off’ is writing it down”. I’ve always liked that sentiment, since it sort of works to “ungatekeep” science. It’s easy to be intimidated by the seeming monolith of “science”, but fundamentally science basically boils down to “doing, testing, and measuring something” and it doesn’t really matter what that “something” actually is.