NOVA: String theory's great claim to fame is that it unifies the four forces. Why is unification so important? Weinberg: Unification is where it's at. The whole aim of fundamental physics is to see ...

Our universe may be fundamentally unstable. In a flash, the vacuum of space-time may find a new ground state, triggering a cataclysmic transformation of the physics of the universe. Or not. A new ...

Some physicists think there is a unit of matter more fundamental than what has been experimentally confirmed to date. They think that everything in the universe is made of tiny vibrating strands of ...

String theory has long been presented as physicists' best candidate for describing the fundamental nature of the Universe. Yet, at the beginning of the 21st century, it became apparent that most ...

The accelerating expansion of the Universe might not be just an unexplained phenomenon — according to a new proposal by theoretical physicists, it could be a fundamental feature woven into the very ...

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 ...

pt. 1. edge of knowledge -- ch. 1. Tied up with string -- pt. 2. Dilemma of space, time, and the quanta -- ch. 2. Space, time, and the eye of the beholder -- ch. 3. Of warps and ripples -- ch. 4.

But despite its extraordinary popularity among some of the smartest people on the planet, string theory hasn’t been embraced by everyone–and now, nearly 30 years after it made its initial splash, some ...