Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard?

Re:Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard? by recursivecaveat on Monday February 09, 2026 @08:33PM (#46954198)

Maybe? We seem to be able to characterize all the stuff we have access to. That doesn't mean we couldn't say produce new and interesting materials with new knowledge. Before we knew about nuclear fission we didn't realize that we couldn't predict that anything would happen from a big chunk of uranium or the useful applications of that. New physics might be quite subtle or specific but still useful.

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Re:Is particle physics dead, dying, or just hard? by A_D_E_P_T on Tuesday February 10, 2026 @07:25AM (#46958805)

All the stuff we have access to?

There isn't even a general physical theory of window glass -- i.e. of how to resolve the Kauzmann paradox and define the nature of the glass transition. Glass is one of man's oldest materials, and yet it's still not understood.

There's also, famously, no general theory for superconducting materials, so superconductors are found via alchemical trial-and-error processes. (Quite famously a couple of years ago, if you remember that circus.)

Solid-state physics has a lot of big holes.

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