Comment by graemep
15 hours ago
> Countless other mathematical curiosities were developed in the 1700s -- and forgotten. Calculus just happens to be the one that found practical applications later, so that's the one that's well known today.
1. You may not agree, but some people will argue that knowledge is worth accumulating in itself. We fund astronomy well beyond the solar system despite there being no real prospect of practical applications.
2. The value of calculus justifies the cost of all the curiosities. The economic benefits of funding lots of "curiosities" was well worth the few that were useful.
> We fund astronomy well beyond the solar system despite there being no real prospect of practical applications
There are a lot of immediate practical benefits to learning more about the physics and chemistry of the universe beyond our solar system.
in general, yes. but specifically studying exoplant A or exoplanet B? or understanding dark matter? or driving a little science robot on Mars? what's the immediate utility of that?
The same thing could have been asked of radio waves when they were first discovered. It was actually considered purely an academic curiosity with no practical application. You can't know ahead of time which discoveries will be the lynchpin for some as yet unimagined future advance. Much like VC you need to spread out your bets and expect that most won't make direct return, but that every now and then something with 10000x return will surface.
2 replies →
> You may not agree, but some people will argue that knowledge is worth accumulating in itself.
Granted for the sake of argument. But our AI overlords are really good at accumulating that knowledge, and very patient in explaining it to us.
> 2. The value of calculus justifies the cost of all the curiosities. The economic benefits of funding lots of "curiosities" was well worth the few that were useful.
That is totally not true. I am sure you can hardly name even one of those "curiosities" that later turn out to be useful and not "free" (i.e. if not existed, wouldn't be invented on the spot as a tool for solving those particular problem that they end up solving).