A new study just added an interesting twist to the complicated history of the physics theory.

Physicists may have uncovered a surprising new clue that string theory—the idea that the universe is built from unimaginably tiny vibrating strings—could be more than just a mathematical fantasy.

If you could take an apple and break it into smaller and smaller parts, you would find molecules, then atoms, followed by subatomic particles like protons and the quarks and gluons that make them up.

Tenets of quantum mechanics and special relativity, among other theoretical ideas, lead inexorably to string theory.

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