Physics as a Way of Thinking (1936)

Many areas of physics such as Condensed Matter Physics are in a golden age of wonderful interesting discoveries every year. In CMP, every material is like its own little universe with its own fundamental ‘particles’ and interactions. There are condensed matter systems that have Lorentz symmetry (ie special relativity) such as graphene, there are condensed matter systems with gauge symmetries and even supersymmetries.

The real advantage of CMP is that where particle physicists are stuck trying to describe the fundamental properties of our universe of which there is only one, condensed matter physicists are trying to describe the emergent properties of materials of which there is a mind-blowing variety. This means that if the condensed matter community is stuck and can’t make progress on material X, they can simply move to material Y and retain much of their expertise.

CMP is like doing particle physics with a multiverse, except that multiverse is real.

As eigenspace pointed out though there is still a lot of good physics in more applied (or at least less fundamental domains). There are still a LOT of physicsal phenomena we don't understand fully that doesn't require a new fundamental theory of everything to make progress.