Silent H writes:
From what I can tell... and this may be wayyyyy off... all these fundamental particles (quarks, leptons, etc) don't last long in the "real world". That is to say, no matter how much we pick them apart, they fall back together (or reduce to energy) such that they have no value beyond understanding the esoteric properties of the universe.
My knowledge of this stuff is limited to reading Brian Greene and others like him, so my question is based not on knowledge but out of interest. I have looked at web sites of people like
Julian Barbour and it seems to me that the next big thing in physics might be time, which could affect the premise of your question.
Is it possible, or even likely, that we will be able to use the scientific method to understand how time impacts our existence in the same way that relativity and QM have?