A farewell to particles

TL;DR

This paper reflects on the decline of nuclear and particle physics, drawing parallels with nuclear weapons physics, and discusses broader issues in science and society based on a 50-year career perspective.

Contribution

It provides a personal historical overview of particle physics' decline and highlights societal and scientific challenges through the author's extensive experience.

Findings

Particle physics has experienced a significant decline over the past 30 years.

The decline of nuclear weapons physics offers insights into scientific and social issues.

Current scientific challenges are not adequately addressed in public discourse.

Abstract

We outline the course of affairs in the experimental and theoretical fields of nuclear and particle physics which determined its finale, and give several fragmentary remarks on its present state. The essay tells about events and their participants, known from the literature, but presented here from the perspective of a person whose 50-year labor activity, 1972--2022, proceeded at the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics, Sarov. In order to predict the fate of particle physics and related astrophysics and cosmology, it is useful to become aware of the facts about another branch of physics that has already gone through its decline $\sim 30$ years ago, the physics of nuclear weapons. These facts are important not in themselves, but as evidence of the growing problems of science and social life, which are not only far from a satisfactory solution, but have not even been the subject of any serious discussion.