@newton_john
It is striking how little progress has been made in fundamental physics since I was at university fifty years ago, despite the huge expenditure incurred. So far, string theory hasn’t produced a single experimentally testable finding. The only tangible result we have is the confirmation of the Higgs Boson which was postulated in the sixties.
I think it depends on how narrowly you define fundamental physics! The great breakthroughs are best confirmed if seemingly unlikely predictions are discovered later to be true. It took about 100 years before experimenters discovered the gravity waves predicted by Einstein. The Standard Model of particle physics was good theory until the predicted Higgs boson was discovered decades later. Nobody knows if string theory is just a theory, or maybe m-branes fit better?
The Big Bang theory was a nice theory until the predicted cosmic background microwave radiation was accidentally ’discovered’ by researchers who weren’t looking for it, and did not know what it was when they found it! Did not stop them getting a Nobel prize.
To me the most profound recent development comes from detailed analysis of the fine structure of the cosmic background microwave radiation, which is absolutely uniform to within 1 part in 50,000. Cosmology has only recently become a hard science, and the fine structure is believed to come from quantum effects in the very early universe, for the first time linking the very large to the very small. We now have a pretty good handle on the detailed evolution of our universe, and possible multi-verses
We also have another new window into our own evolution, through the mapping of RNA and DNA changes from very early organisms.
I for one am happy with some by-products of pure research, like the www and WiFi. All thanks in some measure to technicians like your great uncle
