Scientists seeking the secrets of the universe would like to make a model that shows how all of nature’s forces and particles fit together. It would be nice to do it with Legos. But perhaps a better ...

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 ...

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, ...

Three decades ago, a British documentary series named Connections aired, which showed viewers how various scientific achievements and discoveries were really interrelated, no matter how disparate they ...

Quantum mechanics and general relativity are the two pinnacles of 20th-century physics. In their respective fields, ...

The problem with string theory, according to some physicists, is that it makes too many universes. It predicts not one but some 10 500 versions of spacetime, each with their own laws of physics. But ...

The number pi (π) appears in the most unlikely places. It can be found in circles, of course—as well as in pendulums, springs and river bends. This everyday number is linked to transcendental ...

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 ...

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 ...