>>>And note that this is physics, where there's already a vast investment in equipment, and thousands of very qualified people who can check a theory in a relatively short time (few years).
>>
>>The most important prediction of general relativity is the existence of gravitational waves. So far, no one has figured out how to detect them. In other words, we don't yet know if they are real or not.
>
>OTher things were checked - how many new types of particles were predicted (or pre-calculated to exist), and were detected within a few years, at the cost of just money and labor?

I think the calculations were based on the standard model of particle physics, which stands separately from relativity. Relativity's experimental success is summed up nicely here:
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/EinsteinTest.html

In any case, what I'm reading this weekend is an essay of Popper's from the book Objective Knowledge. He discusses not one, not two, but three "worlds" for our existence. I'm still refining my Multiple Natures Hypothesis and I'm not sure yet if his distinction of three realms would be valuable to my currently two-realmed conjecture.

If anyone likes Rand and objectivism and philosophy in general, I recommend The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper to get introduced to his extrodinary rationality, and then anything else of his (for example The Logic of Scientific Discovery, In Search of a Better World: a collection of essays).