Diagram of an idealized Lithium atom, primarily useful to illustrate the nucleus of an atom. via WikiMedia. This is the fundamental idea of superstring theory ("string theory" for short)– that ...

Illustration by Annenberg Lerner 2013. To make it even more complicated and mind-boggling, String Theory works in a number of dimensions. The Bosonic String Theory, for example, has 26 dimensions.

String theory is the idea that everything in the universe, every particle of light and matter, is comprised of miniscule vibrating strings. These strings are truly tiny, ...

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 ...

String theory (or, more technically, M-theory) is often described as the leading candidate for the theory of everything in our universe. But there’s no empirical evidence for it, ...

String theory might be the theory of everything… or a flawed framework for theoretical physics. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it ...

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 ...

String theory is perhaps the most high-profile candidate for what physicists call a theory of everything – a single mathematical framework capable of describing the entirety of the known universe.

Generating tension. In all string theory models, the strings have some tension; but in most conventional models the value of this tension is a constant that is added in by hand, arbitrarily.