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> nobody was funding the people that did invent calculus. Of course someone was. Newton and Leibniz weren't living in autarky an some island. They had an incom

> nobody was funding the people that did invent calculus. Of course someone was. Newton and Leibniz weren't living in autarky an some island. They had an income stream that was taken away from somewhere else and given to them so that they could afford working on their pet projects. The fact that it's not publicly funded doesn't change the fact that there's still resource allocation happening.

Dylan16807 8d ago
I think by that definition every mathematician in the current day is funded, mission accomplished.
- stymaar 8d ago
  > every mathematician in the current day is funded, This is tautological, “mathematician” being defined in the modern world as someone paid to do mathematics… Notice that the modern world is able able to sustain significantly more mathematicians than when “mathematicians” used to mean “someone well-off enough to work on mathematics in their ample amount of free time without worrying about their subsistence”.
  - Dylan16807 8d ago
    > This is tautological, “mathematician” being defined in the modern world as someone paid to do mathematics… Note that I'm including all the ones that a normal definition would not call paid, but your definition does. But yes when a definition declares that everyone doing a thing is "funded", it does get pretty tautological and get in the way of arguments for actual funding.
what 8d ago
They worked other jobs, no? No one paid them specifically to invent calculus or anything of the sort.
- stymaar 8d ago
  > They worked other jobs, no? This is an anachronism, you're projecting modern social organization to an era that worked very differently.
- pdonis 8d ago
  During the years when Newton made his great discoveries, of calculus and universal gravitation, he had a scholarship from the University of Cambridge. (Note that it was not until a couple of decades later that Newton published this work.) After he got his MA he became a Fellow of Trinity College. So society was basically subsidizing him.
  - rdbl27 7d ago
    Newton was able to attend Cambridge at all only because his parents were prosperous yeoman farmers who owned substantial agricultural estates and held private incomes. Nearly all schools at the time were not subsidized by society and required substantial tuition payments. Most children had to get jobs. School was rare. Newton's parents, while not extremely wealthy, could afford to send him to expensive private schools, instead of requiring him to get a job at age 8. This was a prerequisite for entering Cambridge. His early career was subsidized by his upper middle class parents and inherited capital, not by society at large. He became a professor at age 26, and was paid a salary in exchange for work after that.
rdbl27 7d ago
Newton and Leibniz both inherited substantial estates from their upper middle class parents. Neither was fabulously wealthy, but they were both able to bootstrap their academic careers with inherited money until they became famous enough to receive patronage. "Individuals choosing voluntarily to spend their own money researching mathematical puzzles and curiosities and pure knowledge" is a very different ethical proposition than modern academia, which depends heavily on compulsory tax payments levied on everyone.

Dylan16807 8d ago

I think by that definition every mathematician in the current day is funded, mission accomplished.

stymaar 8d ago
> every mathematician in the current day is funded, This is tautological, “mathematician” being defined in the modern world as someone paid to do mathematics… Notice that the modern world is able able to sustain significantly more mathematicians than when “mathematicians” used to mean “someone well-off enough to work on mathematics in their ample amount of free time without worrying about their subsistence”.
- Dylan16807 8d ago
  > This is tautological, “mathematician” being defined in the modern world as someone paid to do mathematics… Note that I'm including all the ones that a normal definition would not call paid, but your definition does. But yes when a definition declares that everyone doing a thing is "funded", it does get pretty tautological and get in the way of arguments for actual funding.

what 8d ago

They worked other jobs, no? No one paid them specifically to invent calculus or anything of the sort.

stymaar 8d ago
> They worked other jobs, no? This is an anachronism, you're projecting modern social organization to an era that worked very differently.
pdonis 8d ago
During the years when Newton made his great discoveries, of calculus and universal gravitation, he had a scholarship from the University of Cambridge. (Note that it was not until a couple of decades later that Newton published this work.) After he got his MA he became a Fellow of Trinity College. So society was basically subsidizing him.
- rdbl27 7d ago
  Newton was able to attend Cambridge at all only because his parents were prosperous yeoman farmers who owned substantial agricultural estates and held private incomes. Nearly all schools at the time were not subsidized by society and required substantial tuition payments. Most children had to get jobs. School was rare. Newton's parents, while not extremely wealthy, could afford to send him to expensive private schools, instead of requiring him to get a job at age 8. This was a prerequisite for entering Cambridge. His early career was subsidized by his upper middle class parents and inherited capital, not by society at large. He became a professor at age 26, and was paid a salary in exchange for work after that.

rdbl27 7d ago

Newton and Leibniz both inherited substantial estates from their upper middle class parents. Neither was fabulously wealthy, but they were both able to bootstrap their academic careers with inherited money until they became famous enough to receive patronage. "Individuals choosing voluntarily to spend their own money researching mathematical puzzles and curiosities and pure knowledge" is a very different ethical proposition than modern academia, which depends heavily on compulsory tax payments levied on everyone.