I fully expect that string theory will eventually turn out to be completely unrelated to physical reality, but give rise to a new family of useful encryption algorithms or something. Research is like that.https://mastodon.social/@gutenberg_org/11309705...
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In _A Mathematician’s Apology_, G. H. Hardy argues for the virtue of mathematics as a beautiful aesthetic pursuit with intrinsic value that is not dependent on any kind of applied utility. He talks about various fields that in his view will •never• have any sort of practical application, and the two examples he gives are…number theory and relativity.
Oops!
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Paul Cantrellreplied to Paul Cantrell last edited by [email protected]
Ah, I see some Wikipedia editor noticed the same thing — and I’m slightly misremembering what Hardy said (though the “oops” still applies!).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathematician%27s_Apology#Critiques -
Number theory and relativity are great examples not just of how theories find surprising applications, but how ethically decoupled the applications are from the theory.
Number theory gave us encryption, but also blockchain.
Relativity gave us accurate GPS, but also nuclear weapons.
You just can’t know. Simultaneously hopeful and grim news for the theoretician who wonders whether their abstruse work might have tangible, practical value! Hardy’s “focus on the beauty” stance may be the wise one.
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(To be clear: “the wise one” for the theoretician for whom application is beyond the horizon of predictability. Those of us who engineer practical applications can and should be on the hook for what we build!)
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concept of a display namereplied to Paul Cantrell last edited by
@inthehands fwiw, they largely developed GPS to get nuclear weapons on target.
really great video on Polaris and the technical challenges needed to make it happen back in the late 50s: https://youtu.be/dSih6Ch0Hzs
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Paul Cantrellreplied to concept of a display name last edited by
@thedansimonson
I did not know this story! -
@inthehands /giphy Jeff goldblum Jurassic Park just because you can do a thing
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Aleksandra Fedorova :fedora:replied to Paul Cantrell last edited by
I think the statement is still correct.
It is indeed "a beautiful aesthetic pursuit with intrinsic value that is not dependent on any kind of applied utility".
The applied utility can be found later, and we will be glad if and when it happens. But it is not the reason *why* we do it. Applied utility is just a nice sideeffect, not a driving force.
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@inthehands
A related challenge: Is there any bound on how many abstruse theoreticians society should be prepared to support for the unpredictable eventual value of their output? -
Paul Cantrellreplied to Aleksandra Fedorova :fedora: last edited by
@bookwar
(Yes, his larger premise stands; see downthread re all this) -
@livcomp
And conversely, is there a lower bound on how many we need to support for a healthy society? -
@inthehands The immense changes in mathematics from 1900 to 1940 (when this book was written) could also be a reason for writing it. Like, the literal foundations of math were changing. And he really wanted applied mathematics to not be just military efforts (in the UK)
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@brianrepko
I think that’s probably both true and an important insight! -
@inthehands Never say never - and now physicists and coming with new math
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/string-theorists-accidentally-find-a-new-formula-for-pi/
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@brianrepko
That’s the link that started the thread! -
@inthehands then you have the connections between number theory and relativity.
Is that connection relevant to anything? Probably, but I have no idea how.
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@inthehands I've collected some notes about how I stumbled into this curiosity here:
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@leon_p_smith
Some days it just seems like everything is group theory! I can see how people go all Golden Hammer about it. -
@inthehands I saw you posted that after I replied - apologies!
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@brianrepko no worries, great minds etc!