The five big questions in physics 1. How to unify quantum theory and gravity? 2. Does quantum mechanics really make sense? 3. Unify the different for… - Lee Smolin

While most people... were seeking to modify the principles of either relativity or quantum theory, we surprised ourselves (and many other people) by succeeding in putting them together without modifying their principles.

In string theory one studies strings moving in a fixed classical spacetime. ...what we call a background-dependent approach. ...One of the fundamental discoveries of Einstein is that there is no fixed background. The very geometry of space and time is a dynamical system that evolves in time. The experimental observations that energy leaks from binary pulsars in the form of gravitational waves—at the rate predicted by general relativity to the... accuracy of eleven decimal places—tell us that there is no more a fixed background of spacetime geometry than there are fixed crystal spheres holding the planets up.

From the beginning of physics, there have been those who imagined they would be the last generation to face the unknown. Physics has always seemed to its practitioners to be almost complete. This complacency is shattered only during revolutions, when honest people are forced to admit that they don't know the basics.