Mathematics is what everything else is built upon. I'm no mathematician but a very good friend of mine is: teacher at a big uni, researcher. Pure math.

His entire life he's had --and still has-- to deal with comments like the one you just made, implying that the only value is solving pointless conjecture (if it wasn't pointless, according to your logic, then the value wouldn't be that it is solved).

Truth is to be found in this xkcd:

https://xkcd.com/435/