Published January 7 in the journal Nature, one paper tackled the age-old problem of nature’s construction with a bit of a twist: it suggests that living networks, like our brain, may use some of the ...

String theory attempts to unify all forces and particles in the universe using vibrating strings. It aims to explain the Standard Model of particle physics, which is incomplete. String theory predicts ...

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 ...

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 ...

One of the most striking outcomes of the surface-minimization framework is its ability to explain structural features that ...

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 ...

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 ...

Some recent work by Danielsson at University of Uppsala has, to a certain extent, reversed the usual process of scientific discovery in order to start making order-of-magnitude predictions from string ...

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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, ...

Gauge theory and string theory represent two foundational pillars in contemporary theoretical physics, offering profound insights into the nature of fundamental interactions and the structure of the ...

After the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted in Iceland in 2010, flight cancellations left Miranda Cheng stranded in Paris. While waiting for the ash to clear, Cheng, then a postdoctoral researcher at ...