So while Chemistry labs have gotten a bad name, Physics labs have a much better reputation. Like New York City, there are nifty things going on here. You have steel balls rolling down ramps and hitting wheels, turning linear momentum into angular momentum. You know, nifty stuff like that. People have come to believe that the nifty stuff is all in Physics.
Chemistry becomes something of a malodorous joke.
What happens, however, is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prediction that the nifty stuff will be called Physics. I think the real cutting edge Physics is really Chemistry being called Physics because it sounds better. When most people think of Physics they think of dropping steel balls from high places and seeing how long it takes them to fall and how high they bounce. But now consider this stuff of looking at sub-atomic particles and coming up with humorous names for new kinds of quarks. That is, looking at what makes up matter.