The belief that all physical matter is made up of vibrating elements called "strings." Officially known as "superstring theory," it differs from traditional physics, in which all matter is made up of ...

WHEN Joseph Conlon was an undergraduate in the early 2000s, he avoided popular science accounts of string theory because he wanted to engage with it on a technical level, without preconceptions. It ...

It's one of the most brilliant, controversial and unproven ideas in all of physics: string theory. At the heart of string theory is the thread of an idea that's run through physics for centuries, that ...

String theory remains elusive as a 'provable' phenomenon. But a team of physicists has now taken a significant step forward in validating string theory by using an innovative mathematical method that ...

It’s not easy being a “theory of everything.” A TOE has the very tough job of fitting gravity into the quantum laws of nature in such a way that, on large scales, gravity looks like curves in the ...

All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Gizmodo may earn an affiliate commission. Reading time 7 minutes ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. String theory is perhaps the most controversial big idea in all of ...

String theory aims to explain all fundamental forces and particles in the universe—essentially, how the world operates on the smallest scales. Though it has not yet been experimentally verified, work ...

But despite its extraordinary popularity among some of the smartest people on the planet, string theory hasn’t been embraced by everyone–and now, nearly 30 years after it made its initial splash, some ...