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Why Is M-Theory the Leading Candidate for Theory of Everything?
The mother of all string theories passes a litmus test that, so far, no other candidate theory of quantum gravity has been able to match.
A Physicist’s Physicist Ponders the Nature of Reality
Edward Witten reflects on the meaning of dualities in physics and math, emergent space-time, and the pursuit of a complete description of nature.
Newfound Wormhole Allows Information to Escape Black Holes
Physicists theorize that a new “traversable” kind of wormhole could resolve a baffling paradox and rescue information that falls into black holes.
How the Hidden Higgs Could Reveal Our Universe’s Dark Sector
The universe has not cooperated with physicists’ hopes. In desperation, many are looking for new ways to search for surprises at the Large Hadron Collider.
To Solve the Biggest Mystery in Physics, Join Two Kinds of Law
Reductionism breaks the world into elementary building blocks. Emergence finds the simple laws that arise out of complexity. These two complementary ways of viewing the universe come together in modern theories of quantum gravity.
Quantum Theory Rebuilt From Simple Physical Principles
Physicists are trying to rewrite the axioms of quantum theory from scratch in an effort to understand what it all means. The problem? They’ve been almost too successful.
Joe Polchinski’s Restless Pursuit of Quantum Gravity
The pot-stirring string theorist and quantum gravity theorist never sits still for long.
Eva Silverstein’s Spirals and Strings
Daily bike rides, serendipitous interactions and long periods of solo thinking inspire this string cosmologist.
Where Gravity Is Weak and Naked Singularities Are Verboten
Recent calculations tie together two conjectures about gravity, potentially revealing new truths about its elusive quantum nature.