Comment by alberto-m
19 hours ago
> mathematics doesn't exist for their pleasure, it exists to provide tools to solve humanitie's problems
Who decreed that? Mathematics predates capitalism and publish-or-perish by a couple of millennia. Euclid’s Elements were not written to benefit the weapons or medical industry.
Who decreed that they are entitled to get paid for that?
Maybe this hurts more than it should do because of publish-or-perish.
Mathematicians have been unpaid for centuries. The problem at hand is much deeper then just deciding who gets the taxpayer money.
And they can continue to do unpaid mathematics
But humanity is not going to sit around and wait for solutions just so hobbyists can have a moment of glory.
Why? Elements wasn't a 500 clever puzzle solutions.