There are two issues at stake here. The curious layman would, I argue, rather study the vacuum cleaner than quantum mechanics, if only because the former offers

There are two issues at stake here. The curious layman would, I argue, rather study the vacuum cleaner than quantum mechanics, if only because the former offers a well-understood topic to study, whereas the latter offers hostile theories and confusion. On the other hand, studying sci-fi physics sheds some light into what's coming to our world in the near term, and what is in flux. This is obviously valuable to a different sort of curious layman, one who is less interested in how everything works and more interested in refining their world view.