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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

String theory is perhaps the most high-profile candidate for what physicists call a theory of everything – a single mathematical framework capable of describing the entirety of the known universe. The ...

A philandering string theorist is caught with another woman by his wife. “But darling,” he pleads, “I can explain everything!” I didn’t invent the joke; it appeared in the satirical magazine The Onion ...

With just a handful of assumptions, string theory stands alone. Based on the idea that all subatomic particles are made up of vibrating strings of energy, string theory is a candidate for a “theory of ...

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 ...