[leoc]

Obviously experimental physics can be extremely expensive, but coffee-and-chalk theoretical physics positions like (afaik) Higgs' have roughly the same costs as most math or humanities posts. And apparently theoretical physics has huge problems of PhD oversupply.

[XorNot]

Does this disprove your implicit point though? The problem is any position which doesn't cost a lot is attracting way too many people for the amount of possible work.

Meanwhile, the expensive parts - i.e. all the applied physics needed to prove or disprove theoretical physics, is not receiving appropriate funding.