There really isn't any comparison between string theory and the octonion "theories". String theory is a fairly well-developed mathematical theory. We don't un

There really isn't any comparison between string theory and the octonion "theories". String theory is a fairly well-developed mathematical theory. We don't understand everything about it, of course, but we really do know quite a bit. The situation is comparable to that of quantum electrodynamics in the 1960s; we've got enough of a theory that we can do reliable computations, but we're still missing some important concepts. The octonion theory isn't a theory at all yet. Assuming that it will eventually become a theory, what we have now is more like Bohr's early quantum mechanical models or de Broglie's wave-particle duality. We've got some heuristics and some numerical coincidence and some toy models that suggest there might be something there. But no one has actually found a mathematical model that extends or explains the Standard Model of particle physics.