Unfortunately, so far... a truly background independent formulation of string theory has not been achieved... [It is] often called the search for M t… - Lee Smolin

Since the 1950s, the key equation of quantum gravity has been called the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. Bryce DeWitt and John Wheeler wrote it down, but in all the time since then, no one had been able to solve it. We found we could solve it exactly, and in fact we found an infinite number of exact solutions.

There are unfortunately not a few good professional physicists who still think about the world as if space and time had an absolute meaning.

There is no time apart from change. There is no such thing as a clock outside the network of changing relationships. ...one can only compare how fast one thing is happening with the rate of some other process.