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It's funny number theory is not needed for cryptography, potentially not even good for it. AES does not use it, assymmetric uses it the most but non-number theory asymmetric cryptography has existed since the 70s and might have better properties than number theory cryptography. So, the fake and ugly field (sorry, so many say it is pretty but I don't like it, it's very boring and dry and pointless) actually hurt the practical application it was used for.
I would keep funding them as smart people but I would force them to change their focus to physics and similar science. In other words I would revoke their funding for mathematics but would fund them for applied fields. We are probably missing a decade or two of science because fake math traps these people.
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