I don't know why people are throwing around percentages so much in these replies. Percentage of what? Plus, the body of work of mathematics continues to grow all the time.
The core of the original comment that started this chain was:
> Applications of pure math happen downstream decades or centuries later.
My argument was that history shows that a surprising amount of mathematics does eventually trickle down into applications. I don't think anyone is arguing all of mathematics eventually sees an application.
Again, my point was that history does indeed seem to show that "applications of pure math happen downstream decades or centuries later". As the original commenter said, it's hard to predict what will be the next thing to be applied.
The core of the original comment that started this chain was:
> Applications of pure math happen downstream decades or centuries later.
My argument was that history shows that a surprising amount of mathematics does eventually trickle down into applications. I don't think anyone is arguing all of mathematics eventually sees an application.
Again, my point was that history does indeed seem to show that "applications of pure math happen downstream decades or centuries later". As the original commenter said, it's hard to predict what will be the next thing to be applied.