You can hardly blame them." "Assuming stupidity is an inherited trait, then no, I can't. - Alastair Reynolds

You owned the world when you were a young man, felt it like it was fashioned to fit your hands. You could do anything with it you wanted to. But the world kept changing, and sooner or later there came a day when it didn’t feel like you were the one the world was interested in any more.

They dug too far into physics and it bit them. Physics will do that. It's an ungrateful piece of shit. It's a fickle lover that will always betray you. It courts you, gives you rewards, coughs up little treats like fire and the wheel, telescopes and the secret of starflight, makes you think you're worth it, that you're the special one, that you really, really matter to it.…All the while it's saving up this nasty little truth: that every thought, every deed, every hope you've ever held is futile. That the universe will end, and forget itself. That there is no such thing as meaning.… "Do you believe it?" Goma asked. "Of course I believe it. Physics doesn't give a damn about how we feel. It doesn't give a damn about a sleeping soundly in our beds, thinking we matter.

All of it is physics, though, whether you are studying starlings or quarks.