This comment is not to say what is being discussed here is not valuable or relevant. I do not claim that and I rejoice in your discussing Dhamma and relating it to your lives and research! 
IMHO, I donât think the Buddha relied on any kind of âemptiness in the gapsâ argument anxiously expecting or wishfully predicting experimental physics of his or future times to concoct models of quantum mechanics, relativity, or anything of the sort, that align with what he claimed. I donât think the Phena Sutta contemplation recommended in the suttas would look anything like discussing quantum mechanics or modern physics of the 20th-21st century. Or really scientific physics of any time, though I do grant that there are later philosophical texts like Abhidhamma treatises which build a metaphysics of irreducible momentary particles that do not endure very much in time.
I suspect that even if all physicists of every nation consistently for centuries found a convincing demonstration of a particle or wave or anything in their field that could not reduce to other physical components, that most Buddhists wouldnât drop their emptiness argument. They would either try and expectantly predict another scientific model, reject the scientific consensus, or say it doesnât disprove emptiness. I see clear problems here, given many Buddhistsâ attitudes towards emptiness and physics when it says something that vaguely resembles their doctrine.
Iâd love to see a citation from any early Buddhist text in any canonical language that claims or indicates that the contemplation in the Phena and related suttas looks anything like a conversation on interpretations of quantum mechanics. (Genuinely! If someone knows of such a passage that they interpret in this way, it would be interesting to discuss it and learn!)
And again, I say this not to dismiss! All the best to everyone here and may everyone be peaceful! 