I love interesting and deep mathematical results, but on the other hand I cannot object when someone says that most likely all these complicating abstract theorem will not make a change to human kind (apart from more complicating math schedules ;) )
So I'm wondering what were mathematical results from the last decades that were put into real practical use - I mean there would be a noticeable difference without them (this most of the time can be translated to less productivity or money)???
(maybe excluding advances in numerics and algorithms which is easy to imagine. also proving theorems which give insights but yet dont change the world doesnt count.)
I heard about wavelets as one example. Maybe there is something in cryptography? What else? Is there something that seriously is likely to make a change during this century?