Heterotic string theory remains a captivating framework in the pursuit of unifying quantum mechanics with gravity. By merging aspects of bosonic and supersymmetric strings, it provides a fertile ...

Columnist Natalie Wolchover examines the latest developments in the “forever war” over whether string theory can describe the ...

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 ...

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 ...

F-Theory offers a geometric realisation of strongly coupled string theory that extends traditional perturbative methods. By utilising the mathematics of elliptically fibre‐ed Calabi–Yau manifolds, ...

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 ...

For decades, scientists have taken issue with “string theory” — a theory of the universe which contends that the fundamental forces and matter of nature can be reduced to tiny one-dimensional ...

In physics, there are two great pillars of thought that don't quite fit together. The Standard Model of particle physics describes all known fundamental particles and three forces: electromagnetism, ...

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 ...

Physicists who have been roaming the “landscape” of string theory—the space of zillions and zillions of mathematical solutions of the theory, where each solution provides the kinds of equations ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. The greatest scientific legacy that Albert Einstein left us is this: ...