“It’s not what I’m getting paid to do” is probably what most people outside of academia would answer. IIRC Hamming worked at Bell Labs which I think gave people much more freedom to work on whatever they chose than your typical corporate R&D department...
What are typical answers to the question you get?
I don’t get answers to that question because I don’t accost strangers at parties demanding they justify their life choices to me
“It’s not what I’m getting paid to do” is probably what most people outside of academia would answer. IIRC Hamming worked at Bell Labs which I think gave people much more freedom to work on whatever they chose than your typical corporate R&D department...