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Civman, so did number theorist said about the divisibility properties of integers... quote Hardy, one of the greatest of all time :
"There is one comforting conclusion which is easy for a real mathematician. Real mathematics has no effects on war. No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems unlikely that anyone will do so for many years. "--G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p. 140. (Written around 1940, this was an uncanny precursor to nuclear weaponry. )
Today cryptography and coding theory are basically reduced to number theory. Being a code person is being a number theorist.
My point is that it not always clear that something will never have any applications, or what they will be.
Since mathematics is the most constructive of human research (where each generation keeps the most from previous generations), that could mean that no mathematical research really is trivial...
I will quote Hardy again on this subject
"(Speaking with respect to mathematical achievement) ... In these days of conflict between ancient and modern studies, there must surely be something to be said for a study which did not begin with Pythagoras, and will not end with Einstein, but is the oldest and the youngest of all."--G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"Immortality may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean."--G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"(Speaking with respect to mathematical achievement) ... What we do may be small, but it has a certain character of permanence; and to have produced anything of the slightest permanent interest, whether it be a copy of verses or a geometrical theorem, is to have done something utterly beyond the powers of the vast majority of men."--G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"There is one comforting conclusion which is easy for a real mathematician. Real mathematics has no effects on war. No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems unlikely that anyone will do so for many years. "--G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology, p. 140. (Written around 1940, this was an uncanny precursor to nuclear weaponry. )
Today cryptography and coding theory are basically reduced to number theory. Being a code person is being a number theorist.
My point is that it not always clear that something will never have any applications, or what they will be.
Since mathematics is the most constructive of human research (where each generation keeps the most from previous generations), that could mean that no mathematical research really is trivial...
I will quote Hardy again on this subject
"(Speaking with respect to mathematical achievement) ... In these days of conflict between ancient and modern studies, there must surely be something to be said for a study which did not begin with Pythagoras, and will not end with Einstein, but is the oldest and the youngest of all."--G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"Immortality may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean."--G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
"(Speaking with respect to mathematical achievement) ... What we do may be small, but it has a certain character of permanence; and to have produced anything of the slightest permanent interest, whether it be a copy of verses or a geometrical theorem, is to have done something utterly beyond the powers of the vast majority of men."--G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician's Apology
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