string theory

A possible way of resolving the greatest problem of physics.

If, as string theory suggests, the world is made of strings, then what does that mean for a geometry of points? Find out more in this video.

The holy grail for 21st century physics is to produce a unified theory of everything — M-theory is a prime candidate. Find out more in this video.

There are many theories in particle physics that cannot be tested in experiments. Does this make it unscientific? This debate, featuring one of our favourite theoretical physicists, David Tong, explores the question.

Could the world be simpler than our senses suggest?

Interalia is a show by Turner Prize winning artist Grenville Davey and theoretical physicist David Berman.

"[String theory] has led us in strange directions that we couldn't conceive of; it's revealed depths of mathematical structure that we couldn't have anticipated". Watch a video interview with Professor Michael Green, winner of the 2014 Fundamental Physics Prize.
The fact that a sizeable proportion of the financial workforce is made up of physicists is one of the industry's best-kept secrets. We talk to Laura Tadrowski, who has made the leap from physics to finance.

How many dimensions are there? In the latest online poll of our Science fiction, science fact project you told us that you'd like an answer to this question. So we went to see theoretical physicist David Berman to find out more.

A bizarre set of of 8-dimensional numbers could explain how to handle string-theory's extra dimensions, why elementary particles come in families of three... and maybe even how spacetime emerges in four dimensions.

String theory has one very unique consequence that no other theory of physics before has had: it predicts the number of dimensions of space-time. But where are these other dimensions hiding and will we ever observe them?

  • Want facts and want them fast? Our Maths in a minute series explores key mathematical concepts in just a few words.

  • What do chocolate and mayonnaise have in common? It's maths! Find out how in this podcast featuring engineer Valerie Pinfield.

  • Is it possible to write unique music with the limited quantity of notes and chords available? We ask musician Oli Freke!

  • How can maths help to understand the Southern Ocean, a vital component of the Earth's climate system?

  • Was the mathematical modelling projecting the course of the pandemic too pessimistic, or were the projections justified? Matt Keeling tells our colleagues from SBIDER about the COVID models that fed into public policy.

  • PhD student Daniel Kreuter tells us about his work on the BloodCounts! project, which uses maths to make optimal use of the billions of blood tests performed every year around the globe.