[eliasbagley]

Why is it stagnating though? Lack of talent? Lack of funding? Is it that all the lowest hanging fruit is gone and the problems are becoming intractable to solve?

[rubber_duck]

>Is it that all the lowest hanging fruit is gone and the problems are becoming intractable to solve?

Considering that the only way to even observe Higgs is to build a multi billion dollar collider I'd bet on that one.

[scottlocklin]

Social problems, IMO. Physics career track is designed to produce this outcome. Peter Woit (OP) wrote a decent book on the subject.