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Paul Cantrell

In _A Mathematician’s Apology_, G. H. Hardy argues for the virtue of mathematics as a beautiful aesthetic pursuit with intrinsic value that is not dependent on any kind of applied utility. He talks about various fields that in his view will •never• have any sort of practical application, and the two examples he gives are…number theory and relativity.

Oops!

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Paul Cantrell

Ah, I see some Wikipedia editor noticed the same thing — and I’m slightly misremembering what Hardy said (though the “oops” still applies!).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mathem

Some of Hardy's examples seem unfortunate in retrospect. For example, he writes, "No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems unlikely that anyone will do so for many years." Since then number theory was used to crack German Enigma codes and much later, figure prominently in public-key cryptography and the inter-convertability of mass and energy predicted by special relativity forms the physical basis for nuclear weapons.
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Paul Cantrell

Number theory and relativity are great examples not just of how theories find surprising applications, but how ethically decoupled the applications are from the theory.

Number theory gave us encryption, but also blockchain.

Relativity gave us accurate GPS, but also nuclear weapons.

You just can’t know. Simultaneously hopeful and grim news for the theoretician who wonders whether their abstruse work might have tangible, practical value! Hardy’s “focus on the beauty” stance may be the wise one.

Pollenated Dan :Schwerified:

@inthehands fwiw, they largely developed GPS to get nuclear weapons on target.

really great video on Polaris and the technical challenges needed to make it happen back in the late 50s: youtu.be/dSih6Ch0Hzs

YouTubePolaris + Transit: When the US Navy Invented Satellite Navigation as a Side ProjectBy Alexander the ok
Sep 07, 2024, 06:25 PM·Public·Web
1boost·4favorites
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Pollenated Dan :Schwerified:

@inthehands I didn't either until like 3 days ago 😉

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Martin Vermeer FCD

@thedansimonson @inthehands "Computer through the hatch" 🤣

That was really a thing... with rounded corners! The sub's nav system was called NNSS, the Navy Navigation Satellite System (or "Transit"), described in the video. GPS came later. And yes, one of those Transit satellites was still off-and-on transmitting a carrier wave until a few years ago...

users.aalto.fi/~mvermeer/isbn9

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