On how the line between contemporary physics and science fiction is thinning

Sherlock Holmes, in, if I recall right, ‘A case of identity,’ says to Watson, “Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.” This, I believe, is a reference to the much older saying ‘ fact is stranger than fiction’ and has in today’s world as much, or perhaps even more, relevance than when it was coined; and I daresay its relevance will increase with time.
I refer to the state of physics today because, to many people whom I’ve come across, physics is today the kind of reality that was but fantasy in their times. Surprisingly, though, this does not apply only to adults: my own peer group is almost always taken aback when I talk of strings and multiple dimensions just like I probably was when I first read about current researches in physics. But the one question that perhaps bothers everyone is whether physics in its state of being the  oldest, most advanced and the fastest developing discipline on Earth is intertwining itself with metaphysics (which has got, ironically, a similar sounding name) and attempting to be the ultimate answer to every question that can possibly be raised.
What I say is that if physics is even turning towards metaphysics, it is solely because physicists feel the need to let the layman know what they are doing so they can expect some sport in return. Arguably, physics would have been the socially isolated science that was purely rich kid’s domain (which it indeed was once) even today had it remained purely ‘scientific.’ But this still does not satisfy our curiosity as to whether physics is really a fantastic world and not a realistic one.
I will, of course, have to agree there are many people, some who are even physicists (like Einstein himself, rather ironically,) who believe the discipline is following certain impossible ideas nowadays. Take the fact that nothing on Earth can be certainly predicted, only in terms of mathematical probability, which is an inference drawn from the quantum mechanical theory and which led Einstein to say “God does not play dice,” and you’ll know what I mean.
Take the string theory for instance: Dalton’s theory clearly and explicitly spoke of indivisible atoms. Today we have come to a conclusion that these atoms are made of elections and protons and neutrons and that these protons and neutrons and numerous other particles are masses of quarks held together by strings.
What we will find in the days to come, nobody knows; but we do know that, and, perhaps, this is a cliché, every question we  answer will inevitably give rise to more questions. There are very few questions that we can actually give answers to without fearing the wrath of another question right after that. One such question is the famous (once) paradox, “Did the chicken come first out the egg?” We can answer this question without fear as “the egg.”
[There is no doubt as to the answer here, but let me make the issue clear by taking a moment to clarify to some of my readers who for some reason believe that there is a great deal of validity at shooting at me an ingenious question as to how the egg came. We have, in science, answered this question close to a year back and the reasoning is simple: a chicken cannot have come from anywhere except the egg, and, clearly, not bring the first such animal on land and having already acquired data about the present-day chicken being a relative of the dinosaur, we concluded, erasing all doubt that the egg came from the dinosaur. And out is only in the foetal stages that such dramatic gene alterations can occur, not after the chicken is out, up and about. Clearly, the egg came first, perhaps as an immature little chicken, but as a chicken nonetheless.]
I shall go ahead hoping I have rendered you defensive for the next time when you are posed this question! Our present-day physics might be rather like science fiction and there is a slim chance we might someday revert back to purely relativistic physics and open a new doorway for ourselves. But for that day to come, we must live the many (or few) days that exist between then and now!