Intersecting brane models realise four-dimensional physics by embedding stacks of D-branes at angles within higher-dimensional orientifold compactifications. Gauge symmetries arise from open strings ...

String theory has long been touted as physicists' best candidate for describing the fundamental nature of the universe, with elementary particles and forces described as vibrations of tiny threads of ...

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 ...

Identifying such a particle would directly contradict what current string theory models predict is possible, making the detection of this specific particle family at the LHC a high-stakes test, one ...

The idea of String Theory is that our Universe came from a higher-dimensional, more symmetric, more complex state with an enormous number of degrees of freedom. In order for String Theory to be solved ...

For more than a decade, string theorists have been trying to distinguish good models from so-called “swampland” models that are inconsistent with gravity. This sorting effort has led to testable ...

In his classic book The Dragons of Eden, astronomer Carl Sagan tidily summarized the central challenge scientists face when they try to formulate grand new theories: “Remarkable claims require ...

A philandering string theorist is caught with another woman by his wife. “But darling,” he pleads, “I can explain everything!” I didn’t invent the joke; it appeared in the satirical magazine The Onion ...

If you could take an apple and break it into smaller and smaller parts, you would find molecules, then atoms, followed by subatomic particles like protons and the quarks and gluons that make them up.