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String theory suggests that the most fundamental building blocks of the universe are not particles like electrons or quarks, but tiny, vibrating strings of energy. It is the vibration and arrangement ...

For decades now, many physicists have pursued the hope that equations involving an especially tiny "string" could provide the theory that solves nature's ultimate subatomic mysteries. String ...

That's why it's a problem. [For more on the results of experiments at particle accelerators, see Smashing Pictures.] NOVA: What would string theory need to do to make a believer out of you?

String theory has its supporters and its gainsayers among theoretical physicists. Even advocates admit that the theory could be entirely wrong (though naturally they don't think it is).

String theory is perhaps the most high-profile candidate for what physicists call a theory of everything – a single mathematical framework capable of describing the entirety of the known universe.