[zinclozenge]

I've posted this before, but never in my entire academic physics career did I ever get the impression, either in coursework or research, except in the courses covering classical theories (ie mechanics, electrodynamics, etc). As soon as you start learning things beyond non-relativistic quantum mechanics, it's consistently drilled into us that all we have are _effective_ theories. For god's sake, we don't even have a Grand Unification Theory, let alone a Theory of Everything.

[college_physics]

Unifying gravity requires insights into energy scales so remote from our own that you cant hold against eg string theorists for not nailing what happens at such extremes where fundamental notions may break down

Dark matter, being (likely?) a low energy kind of thing feels like a genuine gap within the realm we claim as understood. In this sense its more fascinating.