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?
Non-Euclidean geometry was developed by pure mathematicians who were trying to prove the parallel line postulate as a theorem. They realized that all of the classic geometry theorems are all different if you start changing that postulate.
This led to Riemannian geometry in 1854, which back then was a pure math exercise.
Some 60 years later, in 1915, Albert Einstein published the theory of general relativity, of which the core mathematics is all Riemannian geometry.
This won’t make any sense to any of you right now, but: E = md3
Oh god, the cringe.
That’s a perfect example of a typical interaction between a Technology Management Consultant and somebody from a STEM area.
Techies with an Engineering background who are in Tech and Tech-adjacent companies are often in the receiving end of similar techno-bollocks which makes no sense from such “Technology” Management Consultants, but it’s seldom quite as public as this one.