At the time, physicists found themselves facing a crisis: the two most important ideas of 20th century physics, relativity and quantum theory, were known to be fundamentally incompatible.

String theory postulates that there are an additional six dimensions, but they are so tightly curled in the fabric of space-time that they are beyond microscopic – so tiny that the size of one ...

For starters, LQG studies bits of space-time, whereas string theory investigates the behavior of objects within space-time. Specific technical problems separate the fields.

In order for the math to work, string theory requires that there be 10 dimensions: nine of space and one of time.

Japanese physicists have created a string theory model that simulates the birth of the universe. In their model, the Big Bang was a "symmetry-breaking event" — a fluctuation that caused three ...

One of the problems of string theory is that five different versions of it exist! Four of these are theories with closed strings, which can be visualised with elastic bands that move in space-time.

The most celebrated theory in modern physics faces increasing attacks from skeptics who fear it has lured a generation of researchers down an intellectual dead end.

String theory has been built up out of a lot of smaller ideas that a lot of people have contributed and been slowly stitching together into an ever more impressive theoretical edifice.