Comment by SideQuark

> nobody who has ever achieved notoriety in any intellectual field ever did it to "meet demand."

John von Neumann generated a prodigious amount of math specifically to meet demand, on demand, under govt contracts, world changing things. Some of it was fundamental in getting computers into use.

Newton (and Leibniz) invented calculus to address current astronomical problems, a contemporary demand.

Fourier invented Fourier series to meet the demand of engineering heat flow.

Heisenberg, Dirac, Born, etc. invented the formalisms of quantum mechanics specifically to meet the demand of experimental methods.

Many of these were paid by contemporaneous need to solve significant commercial value problems.

Theres tons of counter examples to your claim. So much so it’s hard to believe you’d make such a claim.