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 has long been touted as physicists' best candidate for describing the fundamental nature of the universe, with elementary particles and forces described as vibrations of tiny threads of ...

At a 1990 conference on cosmology, I asked attendees, who included folks like Stephen Hawking, Michael Turner, James Peebles, Alan Guth and Andrei Linde, to nominate the smartest living physicist.

(via Sabine Hossenfelder) Over the past decade, string theorists have struggled to reconcile their elegant mathematical theory with the reality of our observable reality, inventing what has been ...

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 ...

String theory's equations give rise to a near infinite variety of potential universes in a 'landscape.' This landscape is surrounded by a 'swampland' of solutions that are incompatible with any ...

Modern physics theories highlight the key role of horizons—boundaries beyond which information cannot reach an observer—in a variety of cosmological and gravitational phenomena. Two renowned examples ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: String theory attempts to unify general relativity and quantum theory. Popular in the 1990s, string theory fell out of favor as it failed to provide ...