This suggests that in order to smooth the wrinkles between general relativity and quantum theory, someone would have to come along with a new way of thinking.

This suggests that in order to smooth the wrinkles between general relativity and quantum theory, someone would have to come along with a new way of thinking. There's string theory but it's still unproven stuff. I failed to see how new scientists will actually solve the problem beyond having fresh new minds to look at it from a different direction. Perhaps we don't need old scientists to die, but just new scientists.