Among the prestigious physics departments there is an intense competition in the advancement of physics that efficiently optimizes the distribution of their resources over the various broad sub-fields of physics. One might ask, therefore, how this distribution, the research profile of a department, correlates with the perceived quality of the department. Virtually all of the highly ranked departments find it important to participate in three broad areas of research, subatomic physics, superatomic physics, and astronomy or astrophysics. We use the term "superatomic physics" to embrace all the areas of research that study phenomena from the scale of the atom to the scale of the solar system. Astronomy takes over above that scale and subatomic physics is involved with the scale of nuclei and below. Thus one can use the term superatomic physics to include atomic, molecular, and optical physics, condensed matter and materials physics, biophysics, geophysics etc. Subatomic physics includes nuclear and particle physics, mathematical physics, quantum gravity, plasma physics, fusion, etc.

Of the three broad physics areas, subatomic physics seems to be a uniquely twentieth century phenomenon but it is merely the current stage in the age-old search for answers about phenomena at one distance scale in terms of fundamental entities at smaller distance scales. In this sense the current subatomic physicists are following in the footsteps of the pioneers of quantum theory who sought to understand the atom in terms of the behavior of electrons at small distance scales and of those who earlier explained the gas laws in terms of the theory of atoms.