Our universe may be fundamentally unstable. In a flash, the vacuum of space-time may find a new ground state, triggering a cataclysmic transformation of the physics of the universe. Or not. A new ...

Some physicists think there is a unit of matter more fundamental than what has been experimentally confirmed to date. They think that everything in the universe is made of tiny vibrating strands of ...

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 ...

NOVA: String theory's great claim to fame is that it unifies the four forces. Why is unification so important? Weinberg: Unification is where it's at. The whole aim of fundamental physics is to see ...

The accelerating expansion of the Universe might not be just an unexplained phenomenon — according to a new proposal by theoretical physicists, it could be a fundamental feature woven into the very ...

For decades, scientists have taken issue with “string theory” — a theory of the universe which contends that the fundamental forces and matter of nature can be reduced to tiny one-dimensional ...

pt. 1. edge of knowledge -- ch. 1. Tied up with string -- pt. 2. Dilemma of space, time, and the quanta -- ch. 2. Space, time, and the eye of the beholder -- ch. 3. Of warps and ripples -- ch. 4.

Introduces string theory and shows how modern physics—composed of two theories that are ferociously incompatible—reached its schizophrenic impasse: One theory, general relativity, successfully ...