String theory might be the theory of everything… or a flawed framework for theoretical physics. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

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 ...

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of "Your Place in the Universe." Sutter contributed this article ...

String theory found its origins in an attempt to understand the nascent experiments revealing the strong nuclear force. Eventually another theory, one based on particles called quarks and force ...

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 ...

Note: For a definition of unfamiliar terms, see our glossary. The fundamental particles of the universe that physicists have identified—electrons, neutrinos, quarks, and so on—are the "letters" of all ...

What is the stuff in the universe made of? Our high-school physics tells us atoms, with 90 natural elements building the world around us. But what are these atoms made of? Over the last century, we've ...

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 ...

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