[fastneutron]

While I dream of unshackling my research programs from the bureaucracy of the institutions they’re tied to, I do very much enjoy having an actual budget, paycheck, and health insurance. With all the chaos currently befalling the academic research community, I’m curious what alternative models exist, or could potentially emerge, to support independent research at the $500k - $5m level.

[fritzo]

Math research is cheap, requiring only coffee + room + board + health insurance

[jebarker]

> + health insurance

In the US at least, this immediately makes it not cheap

[jonas21]

Not if your income really only covers coffee + room + board. For example, a 40-year-old in California making $25K/year can get a plan on the ACA exchange for $13/mo.

[fastneutron]

Now do it for an applied physicist with a family and a mortgage!

In theory, the work I do sits in that valley of death between where the government funds uncertain things at a $1e5-$5e6 level and where private capital funds things with more certainty at the $1e7-$5e7 level. It’s easy to burn a lot of labor and equipment on dead ends before you know something will scale.

[Ar-Curunir]

Yes, mathematicians don’t have families.

[throwawaymaths]

George Mitchell