Comment by cubefox
21 hours ago
Most research mathematics is completely useless pure mathematics. There is zero economic value in proving Navier-Stokes, the Riemann hypothesis, Goldbach's conjecture, P≠NP, the Collatz conjecture, the ABC conjecture and so on.
Of course, large parts of science are also economically useless. Like analyzing the storms on Jupiter, or finding out what type of organism the extinct Prototaxites was.
It's done because humans find it intrinsically interesting.
> What a stupid, anti-intellectualism take.
It's the other way round. What he said is true: Most research mathematics is useless. Denying this truth is stupid and anti-intellectual.
Sorry, historically this is just downright false. There are hundreds of examples
https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/280530/can-you-prov...
1. None of these are the result of proving major open pure math conjectures.
2. It is questionable whether these examples couldn't also have been invented by applied mathematicians as the practical need for them arose. Just like Newton came up with calculus to solve problems in science rather than as a pure math exercise.
3. Even if the previous point doesn't always apply and some pure mathematics turns out to be genuinely useful without being realistically inventable by applied mathematicians: that doesn't mean this happens more than very rarely such that the overall expected economic value of spending money on pure math research is positive.