The prospects of physics

As an old engineer, I am biased, but if it is advice you're looking for, I would say learn as much physics as you can then apply it in the field of engineering. We get paid more than the researchers, but I imagine they have more fun

 

I'm going into condensed matter physics, and like to try to turn others onto the field. There is a lot of research, theoretical, experimental, and applied, going on in CM. Also CM has a good amount of funding, but also has more competition for the money.

There is a lot of interesting new research going on in condensed matter. High temperature superconductors, quantum computing, and Bose-Einstein condensates are just a few of the topics being studied by CM research groups out there.

 

All that's left in physics is stamp collecting

 

It's a joke. Throughout history, physicists always thought that they were juuuuust about to figure out everything there is to know about physics and then something ground-breaking occurs that throws what we thought we knew about physics into question and eventually entire new fields and theories come into play.