Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of "Your Place in the Universe." Sutter contributed this article ...

String theory found its origins in an attempt to understand the nascent experiments revealing the strong nuclear force. Eventually another theory, one based on particles called quarks and force ...

What is the stuff in the universe made of? Our high-school physics tells us atoms, with 90 natural elements building the world around us. But what are these atoms made of? Over the last century, we've ...

String theory has long been presented as physicists' best candidate for describing the fundamental nature of the Universe. Yet, at the beginning of the 21st century, it became apparent that most ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. It's one of the most brilliant, controversial and unproven ideas in all ...

String theory has come under fire in recent years. Promises have been made that have not been lived up to. Theoretical physicists have now for the first time used string theory to describe a physical ...

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, ...

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—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 ...