[modriano]

> “The tech industry proceeds in accordance with commercial logic, which is antithetical to the values of mathematics,” declaration co-author Michael Harris of Columbia University

As a former physicist and current data scientist/engineer, I know for a fact that commercial utility drives math research and researchers.

Math is a tool to solve problems. Some mathematicians might only love the process of using the tool, but commercial logic absolutely drives mathematician attention to develop commercially useful tools.

[joelthelion]

It's also a way to model the world and produce new useful abstractions. It's not just about solving problems.

[nphardon]

Yea, math is a crazy thing. just "a tool to solve problems" is a wild take. On one extreme, there's an edgy but logical / plausible hypothesis that we live in a universe of mathematical objects, and at the other, math also discovers a lot of questions, the exact opposite of solving problems.

[modriano]

Is there a useful abstraction that doesn't help solve a problem someone has?

[joelthelion]

You're right, but what I'm saying is that solving the problem isn't necessarily the primary goal and these new abstractions can be valuable in their own right.