Cosmic strings are artifacts of what the universe looked like in the moments before it rapidly changed from a high-energy to low-energy environment—the Big Bang. Today, scientists believe cosmic ...

Imagine a thread so thin it's invisible to the naked eye but packed with the mass of thousands of stars. This isn't science fiction—it's the theoretical description of cosmic strings, structures that ...

(via Sabine Hossenfelder) The BBC claims that researchers have found the first evidence for string theory, citing a recent discovery of long-wavelength gravitational waves that might indicate the ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. String theory captured the hearts and minds of many physicists decades ago because of a beautiful simplicity. Zoom in far enough on a ...

String theory captured the hearts and minds of many physicists decades ago because of a beautiful simplicity. Zoom in far enough on a patch of space, the theory says, and you won’t see a menagerie of ...

All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Gizmodo may earn an affiliate commission. Reading time 7 minutes ...

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 ...

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?” Hawking, who later became my ...