Sabine Hossenfelder: The String Theory Wars and What Happened Next

Sabine Hossenfelder: The String Theory Wars and What Happened Next

Sabine Hossenfelder

String theory was a beautiful idea, the best contender for a theory of everything that we have seen so far. Thousands of physicists spend decades trying to work it out. But it didn’t quite go according to plan. String theory became extremely controversial during what's been dubbed the “String Wars” about 20 years ago. Then it kind of disappeared. What happened? What were the string wars? And what are string theorists doing now? That’s what we’ll talk about today.