>>10498650It's mostly physics because physicists took the opportunity created after WWII to market the victory as their success even though it was the concerted efforts from computer science, physics, and mathematics that brought the Allies their victory. The military was quick to realize the dangerous new power that CS had to offer, but the public still thinks it's just jerking off to code and techbro shit because of industry services. Physics, on the other hand, used the newfound public trust to become even more insular.
In many ways, math (and CS theory) is so foundational and motivated it will continue to be funded regardless of the layman's opinion since;
1) functionally, research can be tested with equipment (think the theorem about coloring a map with only 4 colors), but it's mostly symbolic and done on paper on the cheap
2) it has enough respect from other academics because they depend heavily on their results / collaborate.
Even physics theory depends heavily on modeling experimental results. No matter how much theory physics has, it is an empirical science, so it desperately needs public approval and cultural backing for the funding.