To play devils advocate, I’m not a mathematician but I’ve heard that the topics that lead to modern cryptography was once considered absolutely useless. They s

To play devils advocate, I’m not a mathematician but I’ve heard that the topics that lead to modern cryptography was once considered absolutely useless. They say for centuries, number theory (especially areas like prime numbers, modular arithmetic, and whatnot) was seen as the peak of “pure” math with no real world utility. Personally, im all for static analysis and formal verification in software, particularly the kind where properties can be automatically verified by a computer and to my understanding this field is the on bleeding edge of what’s possible. From a big picture perspective, our world is dependent on software, lives can be at risk when software fails, so for this reason I think its worthwhile to explore ideas that may one day lead to inherently more robust software even if it’s comercial utility isn’t clear.