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 ...

It's one of the most brilliant, controversial and unproven ideas in all of physics: string theory. At the heart of string theory is the thread of an idea that's run through physics for centuries, that ...

Columnist Natalie Wolchover examines the latest developments in the “forever war” over whether string theory can describe the ...

Quantum field theory (QFT) remains the cornerstone of our understanding of particle interactions, unifying the principles of quantum mechanics with special relativity by describing particles as ...

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 ...

String theory—the idea that particles are not point-like, but instead one-dimensional strings—is a popular theoretical framework that attempts to combine general relativity and quantum field theory ...

In this video, we explore the relationship between string theory and quantum field theory (QFT). QFT is a mathematical framework that describes nearly all particles and forces in the universe but ...

Gauge theory and string theory represent two foundational pillars in contemporary theoretical physics, offering profound insights into the nature of fundamental interactions and the structure of the ...

In 1998, astronomers discovered dark energy. The finding, which transformed our conception of the cosmos, came with a little-known consequence: It threw a wrench into the already daunting task of ...