In the two and a half years (or so) since I left academia for industry, I’ve worked with a number of math majors and math PhDs outside of academia and talked to a number of current grad students who were considering going into industry. As a result, my perspective on the role of the math research community within the larger world has changed quite a bit from what it was in the early days of may academic career. In the post below, I explore this new perspective.
In “A Mathematician’s Apology”, published in 1940, G. H. Hardy argued that the study of pure mathematics could be justified entirely by its aesthetic value, independent of any applications. (He used the word “apology” in the sense of Plato’s Apology, i.e. a defense.) Of course, Hardy never had to apply for an NSF grant and his relatives probably never asked him why someone would pay him to solve problems without applications.