[NitpickLawyer]

tbf, we've learned (ha!) more from smashing teeny tiny particles and "looking" at what comes out than from say 40 years of string theory. Sometimes doing stuff works, and the theory (hopefully) follows.

[olalonde]

Same with electricity. We had Ohm's Law and were building electrical devices (e.g. telegraph, lightbulb) long before we discovered the electron.