ReciprocityProject's Journal: Number Theory

If the theory of numbers could be employed for any practical and obviously honorable purpose, if it could be turned directly to the furtherance of human happiness or the relief of human suffering, as physiology and even chemistry can, then surely neither Gauss nor any other mathematician would have been so foolish as to decry or regret such applications. But science works for evil as well as good (and particularly, of course, in time of war); and both Gauss and lesser mathematicans may be justified in rejoicing that there is one science at any rate, and that their own, whose very remoteness from ordinary human activities should keep it gentle and clean.

-- G.H. Hardy, 1940, oblivious that the "theory of numbers" would become the basis for modern day cryptography.