The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. String theory captured the hearts and minds of many physicists decades ago because of a beautiful simplicity. Zoom in far enough on a ...

One of the most striking outcomes of the surface-minimization framework is its ability to explain structural features that ...

In an unprecedented step, researchers crafted a detailed model compatible with the universe’s accelerated expansion.

Scientists seeking the secrets of the universe would like to make a model that shows how all of nature’s forces and particles fit together. It would be nice to do it with Legos. But perhaps a better ...

Does string theory—the controversial “theory of everything” from physics—tell us anything about consciousness and the human ...

In 1980, Stephen Hawking gave his first lecture as Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge. The lecture was called "Is the end in sight for theoretical physics?" Forty-five years later, ...

The idea of String Theory is that our Universe came from a higher-dimensional, more symmetric, more complex state with an enormous number of degrees of freedom. In order for String Theory to be solved ...

String theory attempts to unify all forces and particles in the universe using vibrating strings. It aims to explain the Standard Model of particle physics, which is incomplete. String theory predicts ...