[ok_dad]

My wife says a similar thing, and I agree that it's a hard problem to solve to prevent all that cash going to someone who will just play video games for the length of the grant. I guess you still need some signal that a person will work somewhat diligently on the grant work. I still think that it's important to fund that sort of work because there are so many examples of famous mathematicians in history who were just bored rich folks, or folks who had a benefactor and an idea, or maybe just a poor hermit from nowhere.

[burntoutfire]

Well, we were getting pretty nice results pre-XX century, before any of the taxpayers' money got (forcibly) involved. Why not just continue relying on that proven model (i.e. the rich bored folks, the benefactors and the crazy hermits)? Esp. in math, where there's no need for any equipment or materials, it seemed to work well.

[ok_dad]

I can see that, but I don't want to get into the implications for taxes and such, that's a polarizing topic. Wherever it comes from, it's necessary to support people with good ideas (and even some bad ones).