Recent decades have witnessed remarkable progress in establishing rigorous mathematical frameworks for quantum field theory (QFT), conformal field theory (CFT), quantum gravity and string theory.

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 ...

The prevailing assumption has been that Einstein's theory of gravity must be modified, or 'quantized', in order to fit within quantum theory. This is the approach of two leading candidates for a ...

In 1980, Stephen Hawking gave his first lecture as Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge. The lecture was called "Is the end in sight for theoretical physics?" Forty-five years later, ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An abstract illustration of ...

Non-relativistic string theory offers an innovative perspective on the formulation of quantum gravity, providing a tractable limit of fully relativistic string theories by expanding in inverse powers ...

Published January 7 in the journal Nature, one paper tackled the age-old problem of nature’s construction with a bit of a twist: it suggests that living networks, like our brain, may use some of the ...

In a bold step toward solving one of science’s most puzzling problems, researchers have proposed a new way to bring gravity into the same mathematical language as the other forces of nature. While the ...

For more than a century, modern physics has rested on two towering frameworks that do not quite agree with each other. Quantum theory governs particles and fields, while Einstein’s gravity describes ...

Marika Taylor currently receives funding from EPSRC, STFC, UK government deparments and the European Horizon programme. In 1980, Stephen Hawking gave his first lecture as Lucasian Professor at the ...

The image depicts an experiment in which heavy particles(illustrated as the moon), cause an interference pattern (a quantum effect), while also bendingspacetime. The ...