String Theory

From July 8–26, the annual Prospects in Theoretical Physics (PiTP) program, an intensive workshop for advanced graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, took place at IAS. This year, the program brought together 213 participants from over 20 countries to discuss ultra-quantum matter.

Prospects in Theoretical Physics (PiTP), an intensive two-week summer program for advanced graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, took place from July 10–21 this year, the first meeting since COVID-19 struck in 2020.

Professor Emeritus Edward Witten, renowned physicist in the School of Natural Sciences, has been awarded the Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics. He is recognized “for his groundbreaking contributions to a unified mathematical description of fundamental forces of nature.”

"The Arts and Sciences used to share much of the same intellectual space. Only recently have they diverged to the degree that they seem diametrically opposed. The Exchange is our attempt to rekindle some of the dialogue that occurred between the two fields."

"Natalie Paquette spends her time thinking about how to grow an extra dimension. Start with little circles, scattered across every point in space and time—a curlicue dimension, looped back onto itself. Then shrink those circles down, smaller and smaller, tightening the loop, until a curious transformation occurs: the dimension stops seeming tiny and instead becomes enormous, like when you realize something that looks small and nearby is actually huge and distant."

"Edward Witten has spent almost 50 years at the forefront of theoretical and mathematical physics. Here he describes how the LHC and other recent results have impacted his view on nature, and asks whether naturalness is still a useful guide for the field."

The Strings 2018 conference, which convened international experts and researchers to discuss string theory, took place from June 25–29, 2018, in Okinawa, Japan. The annual international Strings conferences, which have been held every year since 1995...

"My goal is that by understanding the interior of the black hole we understand the universe to be like a cosmology: because the interior of the black hole is like a collapsing universe and by understanding that, we can perhaps be able to understand...

Hirosi Ooguri, past Visiting Professor in the Institute's School of Mathematics, is being awarded the 2018 Hamburg Prize for Theoretical Physics from the University of Hamburg and the Joachim Herz Foundation.

Ooguri's research focuses on creating new...

Clifford V. Johnson, former Member in the School of Natural Sciences, discusses string theory, black holes, and his new graphic novel The Dialogues with physicist Janna Levin and Ira Flatow of NPR's Science Friday. In The Dialogues: Conversations...