> I get that it's difficult to incentivize the development of truly difficult abstract ideas, but mathematicians and physicists have been doing exactly that for centuries and they appear to be doing alright.
So I was an aerospace engineering major in undergrad. For my professors, financial support came from: 1) government; 2) tuition and fees from students looking to get jobs at Lockheed, Honeywell, Raytheon, etc.
The former is mostly subsidized by the military, while the latter is subsidized directly and indirectly by companies who definitely do leverage patents and trade secrets laws to monetize their developments.
So its a "pick your poison" situation.
I get that it's difficult to incentivize the development of truly difficult abstract ideas, but mathematicians and physicists have been doing exactly that for centuries and they appear to be doing alright.