Like stretch marks left on skin that expanded too quickly or cracks embedded in freezing ice, cosmic strings are artifacts of ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. String theory captured the hearts and minds of many physicists decades ago because of a beautiful simplicity. Zoom in far enough on a ...

In the moments before the Big Bang, our universe was a hot, dense, and extremely high-energy place. That all changed when the universe exploded 13.8 billion years ago. Rapid inflation divided a single ...

Illustration of singlet time travel theory. When a pair of protons collide in the Large Hadron Collider, the resultant explosion may create a special type of particle, called a Higgs singlet, that is ...

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 ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. A new theory suggests that the unification between quantum physics and general relativity has ...

String theory began over 50 years ago as a way to understand the strong nuclear force. Since then, it’s grown to become a theory of everything, capable of explaining the nature of every particle, ...

Theoretical physicists use machine-learning algorithms to speed up difficult calculations and eliminate untenable theories—but could they transform what it means to make discoveries? Theoretical ...