Comment by Thorrez

17 hours ago

There are many cases where pure mathematics became useful later.

https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/dfw3by/is_there_any_e...

So what? There are probably also many cases where seemingly useless science became useful later.

  • Exactly, you're almost getting it. Hence the value of "pure" research in both science and math.

    • You are not yet getting it I'm afraid. The point of the linked post was that, even assuming an equal degree of expected uselessness, scientific explanations have intrinsic epistemic value, while proving pure math theorems hasn't.

      4 replies →