US Army applying new areas of math
To be very honest, count me in as one of these. I am someone who works for a gov't lab, but I do "very pure" scientific research. It's not that our research doesn't have "defense applications," it might eventually, but we are definitely a few steps removed from say CFD modeling of airplane wings.The thing is traditional sources of funding suck, and gov't labs give researchers a much better environment than the endlessly political academia. Moreover, while the contractor we work with has something like a 30% odd markup for grants, the nearest university (that I got my PhD from) takes a whopping 56% of grant money as "overhead," I imagine to pay the salaries of the President, coaches, and superstar medical faculty salaries, as well as the new development all along the nearby street.I'm happy for my job, I just am embarrassed when I tell people I work for the military because they think I make bombs or something.