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 ...

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.

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?" Forty-five years later, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 testable predictions and required ten dimensions ...

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 ...