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Terence Tao: "Fundamentally, problems in pure mathematics, such…" - Mathstodon

Fundamentally, problems in pure mathematics, such as the global regularity problem, serve a different purpose than immediately practical problems, such as that of finding a cure to a specific disease, or increasing the energy efficiency of some engine. In most cases in pure mathematics, the problems are posed not because we desperately want the solution to these problems in and of themselves, but because we have seen from past experience that human-directed efforts to solve these problems tend t