I already made the case for why science is important, but why is physics specifically important? All of the same arguments for science apply to physics just as well. However, physics by its nature has a unique place within science that makes it especially crucial.
The first reason that physics by itself is especially important is the role that it plays in basic research – the same basic research that I spoke about previously. The research that pushes the boundaries of what we know about basic laws (in the case of physics, physical laws) is done in a disproportionate amount by physicists and physics researchers. This is almost included in the definition of physics itself and is part of what is required to call certain lines of research “physics research”. Although sometimes the line blurs between physics and engineering depending on where you are, who you are talking to, and what lab or research group you are in, more often than not physics research can be categorized as basic, fundamental research.
For the same reasons as I stated previously, basic research is absolutely necessary. Although even scientists cannot tell you what basic research might be useful for, that is exactly the point. A famous saying is that “innovation and engineering alone cannot take one from the candle to the light bulb”. Something more fundamental about how our world works must be discovered. This is basic research and often physics research.
The second quality of physics research that is important (and somewhat related to the first reason) is the role that physics plays in relation to other sciences. Sciences like biology, chemistry, neuroscience, among others. Often these fields discover and characterize phenomenon, without a complete or fundamental knowledge of why these phenomena occur or why they occur in exactly that way. Physics often can collaborate with these fields to provide the explanation. This is also sheds light on why these other sciences are important, and again the lines can be blurred between fields. But once the underlying mechanisms of phenomena are known they can be significantly expanded. This is the role physics plays.
As a physicist, I am certainly biased in this discussion (and some physicists may call what I do engineering), but I believe that physics serves a unique role within the sciences that is especially crucial. Of course, the relevance of chemistry and biology to human health research is a damning counter, and these topics will surely be under-represented in the blog. Physics is important, but of course all sciences are as well.