My dynamics professor mentioned to me that most of the physics world considered themselves to have conquered human knowledge at the end of the 19th century. The

My dynamics professor mentioned to me that most of the physics world considered themselves to have conquered human knowledge at the end of the 19th century. The famous apocryphal quote from the head of the patent office saying that everything that could have been invented, had, comes to mind. (http://patentlyo.com/patent/2011/01/tracing-the-quote-everything-that-can-be-invented-has-been-invented.html http://patentlyo.com/patent/2011/01/tracing-the-quote-everyt...) I found out from another professor that the first had actually wanted to go into physics in his young life, but was encouraged to get into engineering, since hard science had basically been played out. Of course, the early 20th century took off, and we have the classic picture of Einstein seated with all the other great scientists of the day. This is the group my prof could have rubbed shoulders with, and he was apparently a little bitter about it. I probably would have been too.