There have been a number of Scientific discoveries that seemed to be purely scientific curiosities that later turned out to be incredibly useful. Hertz famously commented about the discovery of radio waves: “I do not think that the wireless waves I have discovered will have any practical application.”

Are there examples like this in math as well? What is the most interesting “pure math” discovery that proved to be useful in solving a real-world problem?

  • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
    1·
    10 hours ago

    The same site says things like:

    Between 1901 and 2024, the Nobel Prizes and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel were awarded 627 times to 1,012 people and organisations.

    which pretty clearly makes a distinction between the Nobel Prizes and the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.