The classical physics/Calculus tracks have to continue or bridges will start falling down much more frequently. When I took the sequence 90% of the students were from the engineering school (90% of those that completed the sequence anyhow).
That's also why quantum physics will continue to be taught. It has real industrial applications.
Relativism only takes you so far.
You make an interesting and valid point. Relativity, whether special or general, is irrelevant to most branches of engineering. For that matter, it is irrelevant to most branches of physical and biological science.
Still, I am surprised that physics majors are not required to have a course in relativity.
This is what I was thinking. A standard 3 or 4 year undergraduate degree is probably just enough to get a real good handle on classical physics, including the classical model of elctromagnetism. In fact, I’m wondering, who does take an undergraduate degree in physics, and for what purpose? Short of the high energy and particle physics end of it, most of the practical aspects of physics are addressed by engineers, and for most of what they do relativistic and quantum effects just aren’t relavent.
I think that's an example of how we are becoming more materialistic and how the effects of that is leaking into our education system. I think with modernism/post modernism, fundamental truths are considered a waste of time. Science is just a search for facts and nothing else.