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I sincerely doubt most pure math will ever be used.

• thih9 2y ago
  That is exactly what a person in 1500s would have said about e.g. imaginary number. In fact, this was the opinion on that at the time. > it was Rafael Bombelli who first set down the rules for multiplication of complex numbers in 1572. The concept had appeared in print earlier, such as in work by Gerolamo Cardano. At the time, imaginary numbers and negative numbers were poorly understood and were regarded by some as fictitious or useless, much as zero once was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_number
  • vouaobrasil 2y ago
    The problem is that I am talking about the majority of research, not a few minority examples.
    • thih9 2y ago
      I still think it’s likely, especially with AI in the picture. 500 years is a long time.
• bubblyworld 2y ago
  I absolutely agree. People who make that argument are either kidding themselves or looking for funding haha. Everyone I knew in my department was there because they liked it (or because they liked teaching and had to produce papers as part of the job), not because they had ambitions of solving practical problems.