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SM/beyond SM is the only field in fundamental physics though. Everything else is either a consequence of those models or applied physics.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
It depends on whether you regard quantum gravity as SM/beyond SM or not. Even if you don't, though, there's still cosmology and black hole physics.
- jjdredd 6y ago
  True. I don't know much about cosmology.
- codethief 6y ago
  …and (if I may add) foundations of quantum mechanics (which may or may not be related to quantum gravity). And dozens of open questions in relativity alone (that have little to do with black holes).
  - hpcjoe 6y ago
    I personally find the entropy connection with information theory and black holes fascinating.
eigenspace 6y ago
I'm a big fan of Phil Anderson's article, More is Different[1] where he argues why he things this reductionist view (the view that the physics most worthy of understanding is the physics of the smallest things) is flawed. The fact of the matter is that at all sorts of scales regularities in the laws of nature emerge, and understanding the smaller and smaller building blocks is only one interesting path for physics research. Condensed matter physics is, in my opinion, a far more interesting and varied field of study than high energy physics. Not only does it contribute to society in a way high energy physics no longer does, but in many senses it takes on a fundamental character like HEP. Every material in the long wavelength limit acts like its own little universe with its own set of fundamental particles and quantum fields. The universes Condensed matter physics studies have supersymmetry, Majorana fermions, magnetic monopoles, dualities and any other genuinely interesting physical phenomenon you could want. What's more is that by understanding the physics of these phenomena, we can create new technologies that really matter. [1] https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_different_PWA.pdf https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_differen...
konschubert 6y ago
we haven’t really understood quantum theory yet on a theoretical level. Everybody seems to agree with that, yet it seems most Physicists immediately refuse to spend any further thought on it and go back to modeling what happens if you double the number of particles and then crash them at 100 TeV
hpcjoe 6y ago
I'm sorry, but I disagree with the label "fundamental" here. One can observe anti-de Sitter spaces in superfluid systems. Is that not more "fundamental" than zoology of particles and their interactions? That has, literally to do with the metric tensor of space. Seems to be a bit more fundamental to me than things interacting in that space. Put another way, the "fundamental" argument is very weak, and everyone outside of HEP knows this.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

It depends on whether you regard quantum gravity as SM/beyond SM or not. Even if you don't, though, there's still cosmology and black hole physics.

jjdredd 6y ago
True. I don't know much about cosmology.
codethief 6y ago
…and (if I may add) foundations of quantum mechanics (which may or may not be related to quantum gravity). And dozens of open questions in relativity alone (that have little to do with black holes).
- hpcjoe 6y ago
  I personally find the entropy connection with information theory and black holes fascinating.

eigenspace 6y ago

I'm a big fan of Phil Anderson's article, More is Different[1] where he argues why he things this reductionist view (the view that the physics most worthy of understanding is the physics of the smallest things) is flawed. The fact of the matter is that at all sorts of scales regularities in the laws of nature emerge, and understanding the smaller and smaller building blocks is only one interesting path for physics research. Condensed matter physics is, in my opinion, a far more interesting and varied field of study than high energy physics. Not only does it contribute to society in a way high energy physics no longer does, but in many senses it takes on a fundamental character like HEP. Every material in the long wavelength limit acts like its own little universe with its own set of fundamental particles and quantum fields. The universes Condensed matter physics studies have supersymmetry, Majorana fermions, magnetic monopoles, dualities and any other genuinely interesting physical phenomenon you could want. What's more is that by understanding the physics of these phenomena, we can create new technologies that really matter. [1] https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_different_PWA.pdf https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_differen...

konschubert 6y ago

we haven’t really understood quantum theory yet on a theoretical level. Everybody seems to agree with that, yet it seems most Physicists immediately refuse to spend any further thought on it and go back to modeling what happens if you double the number of particles and then crash them at 100 TeV

hpcjoe 6y ago

I'm sorry, but I disagree with the label "fundamental" here. One can observe anti-de Sitter spaces in superfluid systems. Is that not more "fundamental" than zoology of particles and their interactions? That has, literally to do with the metric tensor of space. Seems to be a bit more fundamental to me than things interacting in that space. Put another way, the "fundamental" argument is very weak, and everyone outside of HEP knows this.