I'm just on old retired Chemical Engineer like you are so I don't really know what physysists are doing. They tend to look at thing very vast like dark matter in outer space or very tiny like subatomic particles.

I think you posted this question under refining you might get a better response if you post it under a different category.

Refining was chosen by the RG computers. I don't usually choose a category, but added physics as you recommended.

Some physicists, like Carroll and Chen, are trying to find a mathematically tenable model of the universe where the universe is not expanding on average throughout its history and therefore avoids the absolute beginning otherwise required by the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem. I doubt they will be successful, since all mathematically tenable models heretofore postulated have featured cosmic expansion.

Since the 1960s absolute beginning has been favored by data on quasars which only are observed in the far away of long ago.

I agree that expansion will continue to be essential in leading theories. Even in my high speed project of engineering type, expansion emerged as a consequence of extreme stress in local space from kinetic energy, and at an energy density somewhat less than the proposed beginning parameters.

Another research topic comes to mind with the LIGO event GW170817 and observable data from merging neutron stars. Many expectations were met, but with some surprises. A lot of new work will be done to explain the surprises, and with possibility to discover something new in the high energy range.

In other research I've been doing some exploratory mapping of large scale continuous variables of General Relativity into local discrete variables and measurable parameters. It follows from the high speed project.

Good question and Informative answers thank you all

Let me add some topics:

1. Quantum Computers. At difference of classical computers which encode data into binary digits (bits) that exist in one of two states, a quantum computer stores information in quantum bits (qubits) that may be entangled with each other and placed in a superposition of both states simultaneously. There is fundamental quantum theory and materials to be developed.

2. Climat changes and heating of the Earth atmosfere with the biological and medical implications in big cities.

3. Nanotechnology and nanomaterials.

4. Topological phases in materials as topological insulators, Weyl semimetals or Majorana superconductors.

5. Gravitational waves and LIGO measurements. Perhaps this is a new hope to have new astrophysical data which can develop future paradigmes.

6. Particle physics. The Large Hadron Collider provides the means to search for the next theory of particle physics by performing precise measurements of the Higgs boson, and by looking directly for particles that can solve current cosmic mysteries such as the nature of dark matter.

Maybe quantum computing and quantum cryptography.

Also the high energy end of particle physics.

Quantum effects in brain activity.