Tangental: I have a 3 yr old Niche Zero, they are excellent - but they are not first conical. They used the burr from another famous grinder (I was more into all this shit but don't remember now)
Looks you have brought a touch of Dyson to the world of coffee. I hope you do well! I can't see your presence online at all, like no search results other than this HN post which is odd. If you can ship in January you might want to be marketing a bit more.
Have you patented the cylindrical grinder? That looks like a new idea. I wouldn't mind trying that.
Needs a youtube demo video I think. Plus you might want to give one to a few coffee influencers. Maybe give it to a few r/espresso regulars first to pedant about, then fix those things, as you don't want a crap review.
Or can some RSU rich HN-ian just buy it and post a review, pls :-)
For the researchers - because it is fun most likely, and they get paid for it. For society, I am glad we live in a society where some money is skimmed off for curiousity. But for a pratical reasons - this stuff (or some other bet) rears up as useful years down the line for something practical. Maybe some kind of cryptography or making quantum computing feasible... who knows! Imaginary numbers are pretty useful in science, and they probably seemed exotic when they first were talked about.