Silent H writes:
In the realm of fundamental particles, and forces, physics has made a lot of gains within the last century. I'm wondering if physics is reaching an end point, especially with regard to particle physics.
Physics in general as a disipline is not in any way near the end. Most of the research in modern physics is in an area called Condensed matter physics which is still in the middle of a period of growth.
Silent H writes:
That is to say, no matter how much we pick them apart, they fall back together (or reduce to energy) such that they have no value beyond understanding the esoteric properties of the universe.
There are three relevant facts pertaining to this statement.
First of all most particle accelerators turn a profit and benefit the economy of the region around them. So there is an indirect benefit from studying such things.
Second of all there is the invention of concepts in one area which later spill into another. Several of the techniques used to understand particle physics have now crossed over into other areas with practical applications. For example many of the methods of Quantum field theory are being used in the design of superconductors and improved telecommunications. Field theory has also been used to analyze the functioning of the human eye.
(The above is true in an even broader setting, for instance C*-algebras, which if I rememeber correctly Chiroptera worked on, have in recent years been used to improve computer programming techniques and effeciency.)
Thirdly there is the direct application of the subject. For instance in building the ITER tokamak, it is certainly a good thing that we have a working renormalizable theory of the weak interactions. Something which required the study of esoteric phenomena in order to be obtained.
Edited by Son Goku, : Correcting Grammar.
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