For decades now, many physicists have pursued the hope that equations involving an especially tiny "string" could provide the ...

String theory aims to explain all fundamental forces ... which physicists have proposed for certain equations. The results have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The equations of string theory could give rise to elementary particles like those currently known (electrons, quarks, photons, etc.), but because detailed numerical predictions cannot yet be made ...

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.

String theorists are betting that extra dimensions do indeed exist; in fact, the equations that describe superstring theory require a universe with no fewer than 10 dimensions. But even physicists ...