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

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

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 ...

Stanford math professor Keith Devlin talks about two new books that call into question the entire idea of string theory. The theory states that tiny vibrating strings make up everything, but some ...

Ever since antiquity, attempts have been made to reduce an apparently complex reality to a few elementary building blocks from which everything else is constructed. This project – now called ...

Moduli spaces form the mathematical framework for categorising the diverse solutions characteristic of string theory, providing a systematic means to parameterise the various vacuum configurations ...

In physics, there are two great pillars of thought that don't quite fit together. The Standard Model of particle physics describes all known fundamental particles and three forces: electromagnetism, ...

Einstein introduced the cosmological constant to his equations of general relativity because he believed the universe was static. Faced with evidence that the universe was actually expanding, however, ...