Physics is stuck
Whenever I see headlines like this, I&#x27;m reminded that physics has a communication problem where the public thinks that high energy physics is the only type (or the only worthy type) of physics out there.  There&#x27;s a lot more to the field than the next theory of everything, and those other fields aren&#x27;t stuck<p>For instance, in just this decade human kind turned on the first x-ray free electron laser and increased the state of the art in the brightness of x-ray sources by 10 ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE!!!  I&#x27;m not sure I can fully explain how transformational that level of improvement was because I work on the accelerator side, not the user side.  But, at least understand that there are entire subfields that now exist which didn&#x27;t before.  Not just physics, but in biology, chemistry, materials science, and numerous other fields.  It&#x27;s an instrument so powerful that every other scientifically advanced nation is now building their own.  That instrument was developed by physicists and not high energy physicists.<p>I feel that this also gets at a sort of toxic notion that I&#x27;ve noticed some high energy physicists in my own department have (not all, but you probably know the people that I&#x27;m talking about).  The notion is that if you aren&#x27;t working on 12 dimensional quantum theories of gravity or the holographic principle and black hole physics, then you aren&#x27;t a real physicist.  Somehow they think that if your work has a real world impact, then it&#x27;s tainted in some way.  I&#x27;m not sure how it&#x27;s gotten this way, but I&#x27;ve actually been told as much by another grad student that my field should be moved to the engineering department because we aren&#x27;t doing real physics.