In math history there are lots of mathematician who only studied on math. They did not care about applications of their results. For example Apollonius did not wonder "how can I use conics in my life". Also Euler, Leibnitz, Riemann... But now the people ask this question frequently : why did you do this? where does it use?. Lobachevsky said that "There is no branch of mathematics, however abstract, which may not some day be applied to phenomena of the real world". I wonder the opinions of mathematicians. Thank you.
Mathematics is a tool to solve problems in other fields of sciences.
Whether they cared or not, there is no denying the fact that mathematics has been widely applied in solving the practical problems in almost all walks of life. Even those who never had a formal education, have been using mathematics in some form or the other.
Practical utility and justification of the topic are the important points to be considered before the topic is selected/ proposed/ approved in any field of research.
Mathematics is our of many many years companion & it will remain all the time to come in our present age of electronic devices . Mathematics apart from our computer programming planning mathematics calculation is our training & gift & may be certainly useful in our program of training,business,share market & i am the opinion that in age of computer also children also should learn mathematics for their career planning also .
This is my personal opinion
In the Philippines, we have a scholarship program called "Study Now, Pay Later". Analogously, for mathematics research, we can have: "Study Now, Applications Later."
Dear Inan,
In the past, the development of Mathematics was strongly influenced by practical problems. The best known example is the Euclidean geometry; not to mention the work of Pascal in the area of probability. With the increase of an edifice of mathematical knowledge, we can observe the tendency to create theories which are somehow ahead of actual practical problems. One of the best examples is the development of an absolute differential calculus, long before it was realized how important it is for almost all problems in physics and engineering.
My conclusion is therefore that we can not predict all outcomes of research and the development of mathematics should be left outside of the scrutiny of practice. Only in this way we can expect that progress will not be retarded by subjective judgments.
Sincerely, Janusz
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