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, simultaneously one of the most promising and controversial ideas in modern physics, may be more capable of helping probe the inner workings of subatomic particles than was previously ...

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 ...

String theory is the best candidate we have for a theory of everything. Bend to its rule and the various tangled theories of conventional physics emerge as part of a sublime, higher-dimensional ...

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 ...