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Victor Protsak
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A mathematical idea "abstract enough to be useless for physics"

Grothendieck (if it was him) said somewhere :

This XXX, at least, is an idea that will not be used in physics.

Q1 : Is XXX an n-groupoid? a stack? Can someone supply the precise quote, either in French or in English?

Q2: Predecessors of this quote in the same vein would also be of interest. Thank you.