String theory captured the hearts and minds of many physicists decades ago because of a beautiful simplicity. Zoom in far enough on a patch of space, the theory says, and you won’t see a menagerie of ...

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 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 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 ...

Recent theoretical advances continue to uncover profound interconnections between string theory and disparate areas of pure mathematics, notably modular forms, finite groups and vertex operator ...