I get the distinct impression however that Eric deeply craves recognition and is deeply unhappy that he doesn't have a breakthrough or a nobel prize, and I suspect some of his stories like that his equasions were stolen by Ed Witten might not be entirely truthful. I saw a video where he gave a talk at some university, and it was pretty clear to me that the room was empty but he was trying to make it appear as if he was invited and was talking to students.  I suspect his work on E8 isn't coherent enough to have gotten anywhere. When he talks about physics he jumps around a lot as if he is trying to signal that he understands all these different things... but what he says isn't logically coherent it is scatterbrained, and he knows it so he weaves his narrative not in a way that clearly explains anything, but just in a way to explain that he knows all these different things, see, and why won't the experts come talk to him?  Because he isn't quite coherent, that's why. Crazy high I.Q. though, he does have that.