It has been a fortunate fact in the modern history of physical science that the scientist constructing a new theoretical system has nearly always found that the mathematics... required... had already been worked out by pure mathematicians for their own amusement.... The moral for statesmen would seem to be that, for proper scientific "planning", pure mathematics should be endowed fifty years ahead of scientists.

Scientific Explanation: A Study of the Function of Theory, Probability and Law in Science (ed. CUP Archive, 1964)