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 ...

Elise LePage, a Junior Fellow of the Simons Society of Fellows, is a postdoctoral research scientist forging new mathematics driven by string theory. Hatnim Lee/Simons Foundation String theory ...

Three decades ago, a British documentary series named Connections aired, which showed viewers how various scientific achievements and discoveries were really interrelated, no matter how disparate they ...

String theory aims to explain all fundamental forces and particles in the universe—essentially, how the world operates on the smallest scales. Though it has not yet been experimentally verified, work ...

Brian Greene, a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University and director of Columbia’s Center for Theoretical Physics, is the author of “The Elegant Universe” and “Until the End of ...

You may not have heard of knot theory. But take it from Bill Menasco, a knot theorist of 35 years: This field of mathematics, rich in aesthetic beauty and intellectual challenges, has come a long way ...

Researchers are demonstrating that, in certain contexts, string theory is the only consistent theory of quantum gravity. Might this make it true? Thirty years have passed since a pair of physicists, ...

We face a skeletal, triangular pyramid with a platform at the summit; the three vertices are three sets of steps leading up to it, hinting at the history, wonder and timelessness of mathematics before ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. There are a lot of different ways to define science, but perhaps one ...

Eight decades have passed since physicists realized that the theories of quantum mechanics and gravity don’t fit together, and the puzzle of how to combine the two remains unsolved. In the last few ...