It seems to me that string theory was the right idea, wrong implementation. After all, Microsoft is building their quantum computing efforts around TQFTs, whic

It seems to me that string theory was the right idea, wrong implementation. After all, Microsoft is building their quantum computing efforts around TQFTs, which are essentially what string theory is about — “(quasi)particles” are a tangle of the underlying field, and interactions are the results of those tangles interacting. I’m pretty sure we’ve measured anyons and other quantum vortex knotting behavior in everything from photons to matter waves. Then loop quantum gravity is trying to implement many of these same ideas, to reduce all of it to different tangle modes in the same field.