At the turn of the century, it sounded as if string theory could give us big answers about the universe. Well… has it?

In 1980, Stephen Hawking gave his first lecture as Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge. The lecture was called ...

String theory proposes that the fundamental constituents of the universe are one-dimensional “strings” rather than point-like particles. What we perceive as particles are actually vibrations in loops ...

String theory strutted onto the scene some 30 years ago as perfection itself, a promise of elegant simplicity that would solve knotty problems in fundamental physics—including the notoriously ...

Abstract, mathematically complex and (so far) unsupported by direct experimental evidence, string theory attracts plenty of criticism. Yet it remains an incredibly active area of research, with ...

Could reality be made of more dimensions than those we perceive? The question has consumed some of the most brilliant physics ...

A theory that unites quantum mechanics and general relativity claims that there was no first moment in time, but it still agrees with the predictions of classical cosmology. It's in the stars One of ...

This paper is dedicated to Michael J. Duff on the occasion of his 70th birthday. I discuss some issues of M-theory/string theory/supergravity closely related to Mike’s interests. I describe a relation ...

In string theory, a paradigm shift could be imminent. In June, a team of string theorists published a conjecture which sounded revolutionary: String theory is said to be fundamentally incompatible ...