But despite its extraordinary popularity among some of the smartest people on the planet, string theory hasn’t been embraced by everyone–and now, nearly 30 years after it made its initial splash, some ...

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 ...

Since the 1980s, string theory has emerged as the leading candidate for achieving every physicist’s dream: reconciling general relativity with quantum mechanics and thereby finding a tidy explanation ...

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 ...

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 ...

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

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 ...