[aoanla]

There's an implicit assumption here that the "purpose of [physics] research" must necessarily result in concrete results in order to be "worthwhile". A lot of theoretical physics, at least, is increasingly really mathematics [or computer science] research, that doesn't necessarily directly and simply apply to "real world issues", but that doesn't make it invalid.

(That said: also the majority of physics research isn't fundamental physics research, which is the stuff you're talking about. There's plenty of work in areas like condensed matter physics, plasma physics, quantum optics, etc etc etc that is still producing results and driving new developments.)

[javajosh]

I'd say rather that some physicists are doing things that aren't properly called science. Science is only that which can be checked by experiment. This means clearing a space, acquiring tools, preparing the geometry, applying the theory to compute a prediction, and then executing the experiment, taking measurements, and comparing the measurement to predicted measurement. Drop the weight, apply the voltage. Press the button.