{"id":237169,"date":"2026-05-14T22:02:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T03:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/string-theory-emerges-from-almost-nothing"},"modified":"2026-05-14T22:02:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T03:02:42","slug":"string-theory-emerges-from-almost-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/string-theory-emerges-from-almost-nothing","title":{"rendered":"String Theory Emerges from \u201cAlmost Nothing\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/string-theory-emerges-from-almost-nothing.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Developed in the 1960s, string theory proposes that everything in the universe is made from invisible strings. The theory arose as a possible solution to the problem of \u201cquantum gravity,\u201d the quest to align quantum mechanics, which describes our world at the smallest scales, with the general theory of relativity, which explains how our universe works on the largest scales (and includes gravity). Researchers have tried to reconcile the two theories\u2014asking, for example, how gravity behaves in the quantum realm\u2014but their equations go berserk, or in mathematical terms, go to infinity.<\/p>\n<p>String theory is a mathematical solution that tames the unruly infinities. It purports that all particles, including the graviton\u2014the hypothetical particle believed to convey the force of gravity\u2014are generated by very small vibrating strings. The math behind string theory requires the strings to vibrate in at least 10 dimensions, rather than the four we live in (three for space and one for time), which is one of the reasons some scientists are not convinced that string theory is correct. But perhaps the biggest challenge for the theory is the ultrahigh energies required for testing it: Such an experiment would require a particle collider the size of a galaxy.<\/p>\n<p>What is a physicist to do? One way they can probe the theory is to turn to a \u201cbootstrap\u201d approach, in which researchers start with certain assumptions they believe to be true about the universe, and then see what laws emerge out of those assumptions. In a new paper titled \u201cStrings from Almost Nothing,\u201d accepted for publication in <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.aps.org\/prl\/accepted\/10.1103\/cw4p-cqh7\">Physical Review Letters<\/a><i>,<\/i> Caltech researchers, and their colleagues at New York University and Institut de Fisica d\u2019Altes Energies in Barcelona, have done just that. From a couple of basic assumptions about how particles should scatter off one another at very high energies, they derived the elements of string theory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Developed in the 1960s, string theory proposes that everything in the universe is made from invisible strings. The theory arose as a possible solution to the problem of \u201cquantum gravity,\u201d the quest to align quantum mechanics, which describes our world at the smallest scales, with the general theory of relativity, which explains how our universe [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":511,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,2229,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information-science","category-mathematics","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/511"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}