[freefrag]

He's not wrong.

To many mathematicians reality is largely irrelevant. For example G. H. Hardy, an extremely prominent British Mathematician, believed that true Mathematics is an art form and is not useful. He dismissed applications of mathematics as dull and boring.

And I can relate to him. It's incredible how complex, beautiful structures arise from a couple of simple axioms. It doesn't matter if what you study will be relevant or not, what matters is that it's fun and stimulating to explore.

[stephencanon]

A (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) question to ponder: If Hardy were alive today, would he turn his back on Number Theory as too useful, and study something more theoretical like the existence of long-time solutions to Navier-Stokes?