Do you think that Newton expected his discoveries to lead to space travel or computer programming etc.? The advancement of mankind's knowledge is built upon hundreds of generations of human advances in all areas of knowledge. Many, many discoveries laid dormant, sometimes for centuries, before a tangible application of that knowledge, or technology, shows up to affect change on a large scale.

What this person has discovered may not be useful for decades but my guess is it will eventually be of benefit at some point. Mankind's history is riddled with this very thing occurring over and over again. As I said, I can see this being applicable in fluid dynamics, IC design etc. Especially as the speed of integrated circuits become faster and smaller over time. To make my point, the genesis of Boolean algebra occurred in 1854 with the publishing of a pamphlet by George Boole (1815–1864). I'm sure that someone back then said his ideas were of little use to society and not worthy of further study. Where would we be today without George's flash of brilliance?