> What's the point of anything?
Not that I disagree with you, but some things have an impact on people's quality of life: nutrition, healthcare, and psychological well-being.
Not that I disagree with you, but some things have an impact on people's quality of life: nutrition, healthcare, and psychological well-being.
I would perhaps classify that as "immediate" impact, not "lack of impact".
Number theory has driven computer science, calculus, statistics, and so on.
CS, calculus, stats... they all drive (for example) "nutrition". For example, how do you know what a "vitamin" is? How do you measure it? How do you quantify it's effects on the body (and mind)? A whackload of analysis DEPENDS on number theory for us to understand almost everything about the natural world!
Perhaps not that many people in the world understand the formulation of the problem, but then not many people "get" abstract art, either.
:-)