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S18d. Research at age 16
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With 16, you should spend your time with learning rather than with 
doing research. Once you know enough about what others did and where 
they got stuck, you'll have more than enough ideas to work on.
And you'll know that what you do actually matters. 

I'd like to suggest that you read the Nobel lectures of the 
physics Nobel laureates, 
    http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/
The material spans more than a whole century, and will occupy you for 
long! It will put your mind to the whole spectrum of themes that have 
been important enough to merit the prize; most of them will continue 
to be important in the future.

In parallel, use the web to sort out all concepts used in the Nobel 
lectures that you don't yet understand; at first it will be a lot, 
and you have to search a bit to find out where the basics you need are 
well explained. Some items might be explained in this theoretical 
physics FAQ, or in the book mentioned at the top of this FAQ.

Finally, you can ask questions and get valuable feedback from physcis 
discussion groups such as the newsgroup sci.physics.research or the 
PhysicsForms. The more clearly formulated your questions, the easier 
it is for others to answer, and the more useful will be the responses 
you get. 

Doing all these will put you on a learning track which will end in a 
research career and bear plenty of fruit.