[bowsamic]

But the point is that it's a lie, they have no intention to actually try those things. They only say them because as a society we do not give material support to physics for the sake of physics, instead we demand that it has some kind of economic value. Therefore physicists are incentived (or, really, forced) to oversell the reach of their ideas, since governments believe knowledge is not good in itself, it's only really good if there's some whiff that it may give a political or economic edge. All scientists in the world are used to pandering to this, so that they can be left alone and actually work. Unfortunately it seems to be getting more and more intense as time goes on, and as economies contract.