Dark matter is a problem from cosmology and astronomy, that maybe has a solution in an extension to the standard model. Maybe it hasn't and that solution will come from elsewhere, maybe there is a totally cosmological explanation after all. In all cases, the dark matter problem is not a contradiction to the standard model in our current experiments. If there were a particle-physics explanation to dark matter, it would be a sufficiently small alteration to the standard model that our current experiments couldn't tell the difference, to within experimental error. That's how confirmation and new models in physics work.

The standard model is so descriptive and accurate, there is just no room for extensions which predict new physics but are still consistent with existing data.

I suspect in the end it will turn out to neither be exotic new particles nor modifications to gravity, but rather that there is something fundamental about large scale structure formation in the universe that we just do not understand at the present.

Also, "modern physics" is a term of art, vs "classical physics".

There is a lot of hard math and fundamental physical ideas that pop out when we apply quantum mechanics to fields, but it's still QM.

The work of Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Dirac, Pauli from 1925-28 or so is absolutely not our date.

The problem for theoretical physics now is that all experiments from the LHC and so on are consistent with the standard model. So there are no recalcitrant observations that can guide new theory formation. The regime where we might get new physics, where gravity and QM are both significant, is so far experimentally inaccessible, though see here for a nice talk by Carlo Rovelli on one such experiment that might be plausible in the coming years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgieRctZ4dE

The problem with Wolfram/Gorrard's model is that it doesn't relate to any experiments. As far as I know the most that can be said for it is that Gorrard showed that in some limit the model is able to replicate some features of GR and QM, so that by definition doesn't go beyond the predictions of GR nor QM.

Quantum mechanics started with the description of electron orbitals around an atom; how they work is the foundation of chemistry.

“To celebrate 100 years of quantum mechanics, the CERN Courier looks back at the impact of this theory and examines how it keeps delivering new puzzles, experimental ideas and technologies.”

the following comment may be completely misguided but I didn’t find it offtopic (maybe offreality):

“This is probably the slowest branch of the sciences, not able to get out of labs even after a century.”

But now I see that the author says that he meant quantum computing so the comment makes even less sense and is indeed slightly offtopic.