>>14311151To a degree. A theoretical particle physicist will test statistical algorithms in an attempt to convince experimentalists to use them. Theoretical condensed matter physicists attempt to find new alloys to construct that can be used as solar cells or nano electronics. There have been quantifiable, real world applications that came from condensed matter theory.
String theorists take it to a whole new level. They're not physicists since they don't attempt to model any experimental data. They don't attempt to help experiments either. They don't care about experiments because they don't have to, and the reason they don't have to is because they're literally not doing physics.
Any theoretical physicist worth his salt knows that theorists must kowtow to experiment. If you're neither trying to explain an experimental result, nor helping experimentalists to get more precise results, nor tying to invent new materials for experimentalists to grow and test, then all you're doing is mental masturbation.
There's a reason string theory papers get so many citations: they all cite each other as infinitum, because all papers are valid. They're no hierarchy of which are more valuable, unlike in actual physics (theory papers that get cited more are because they're being used more in experiment).
Consider the following: how is the fucking hell does it make sense that Maldacenas seminal paper on string theory has MORE citations than the discovery of the Higgs boson from CERN (and by extension, Higgs original paper on the Higgs boson). Does that make any sense to you?
