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 ...

Physicists may have uncovered a surprising new clue that string theory—the idea that the universe is built from unimaginably tiny vibrating strings—could be more than just a mathematical fantasy.

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 ...

If you could take an apple and break it into smaller and smaller parts, you would find molecules, then atoms, followed by subatomic particles like protons and the quarks and gluons that make them up.

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, ...

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 ...

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?” Hawking, who later became my ...

Fifty-eight years after it first appeared, string theory remains the most popular candidate for the “theory of everything,” the unified mathematical framework for all matter and forces in the universe ...

Promise and controversy continues to surround string theory as a potential unified theory of everything. In the latest episode of The Joy of Why, Cumrun Vafa discusses his progress in trying to find ...