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 ...

String theory found its origins in an attempt to understand the nascent experiments revealing the strong nuclear force. Eventually another theory, one based on particles called quarks and force ...

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 ...

In October 1984 I arrived at Oxford University, trailing a large steamer trunk containing a couple of changes of clothing and about five dozen textbooks. I had a freshly minted bachelor’s degree in ...

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of "Your Place in the Universe." Sutter contributed this article ...

String theory began over 50 years ago as a way to understand the strong nuclear force. Since then, it’s grown to become a theory of everything, capable of explaining the nature of every particle, ...

What is the stuff in the universe made of? Our high-school physics tells us atoms, with 90 natural elements building the world around us. But what are these atoms made of? Over the last century, we've ...

String theory is perhaps the most high-profile candidate for what physicists call a theory of everything – a single mathematical framework capable of describing the entirety of the known universe. The ...

Marika Taylor currently receives funding from EPSRC, STFC, UK government deparments and the European Horizon programme. In 1980, Stephen Hawking gave his first lecture as Lucasian Professor at the ...

Was the big bang really the beginning of time? or did the universe exist before then? Such a question seemed almost blasphemous only decades ago. Most cosmologists insisted that it simply made no ...

For more than a century, scientists have wondered why physical structures like blood vessels, neurons, tree branches, and other biological networks look the way they do. The prevailing theory held ...

Is string theory science? Physicists and cosmologists have been debating the question for the past decade. Now the community is looking to philosophy for help. Earlier this month, some of the feuding ...