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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

For more than a century, scientists have wondered why physical structures like blood vessels, neurons, tree branches, and other biological networks look the way they do. The prevailing theory held ...

Brian Greene is one of the foremost scientists and science communicators of our time. Greene, a theoretical physicist at Columbia University, has been working for decades to advance our understanding ...

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 ...