Related papers: Update on String Theory

In these lectures we give a brief introduction to perturbative and non-perturbative string theory. The outline is the following: 1. Introduction to perturbative string theory 1.1 From point particle to extended objects 1.2 Free closed and…

Thermodynamical aspects of string theory are reviewed and discussed.

We briefly review superstring theories, highlighting the important concepts, developments, and open problems of the subject.

The theory of one-relator groups is now almost a century old. The authors therefore feel that a comprehensive survey of this fascinating subject is in order, and this document is an attempt at precisely such a survey. This article is…

Currently, string theory represents the only advanced approach to a unification of all interactions, including gravity. In spite of the more than thirty years of its existence it did not make any empirically testable predictions. And it is…

Over the last few years, string theory has changed profoundly. Most importantly, novel duality relations have emerged which involve gauge theories of brane excitations on one side and various closed string backgrounds on the other. In this…

This is a completely reformulated presentation of a previous paper with the same title; this time with a much stronger emphasis on conceptual aspects of string theory and a detailed review of its already more than four decades lasting…

The past year has seen enormous progress in string theory. It has become clear that all of the different string theories are different limits of a single theory. Moreover, in certain limits, one obtains a new, eleven-dimensional structure…

A few recollections and afterthoughts on the development of the string picture of fundamental interactions out of the S-matrix program.

This essay presents a critical evaluation of the concepts of string theory and its impact on particle physics. The point of departure is a historical review of four decades of string theory within the broader context of six decades of…

This document is an elementary introduction to string diagrams. It takes a computer science perspective: rather than using category theory as a starting point, we build on intuitions from formal language theory, treating string diagrams as…

I review some of the recent progress in two-dimensional string theory, which is formulated as a sum over surfaces embedded in one dimension.

A polemical article evaluating string theory from the point of view of a quantum field theorist working in a mathematics department. Comments to the author are encouraged.

We provide a detailed analysis of the problems and prospects of superstring theory c. 1986, anticipating much of the progress of the decades to follow.

This is a pedagogical introduction to the basics of the cosmic string theory and also a review of the recent progress made with respect to the macrophysical predictions of the theory. Topics covered include, string formation and evolution,…

We summarize the major results in number theory of the last decade.

This is a short account, based on a talk given at the 2024 Moriond Cosmology Conference, of where and why string theory matters in early universe cosmology. It is written for a cosmology audience predisposed to be at best sceptical, and at…

After a review of some topics concerning the phenomenological applications of perturbative string theory, I discuss to what extent all of it is affected by the recent developements in string dualities.

We critically assess the twin prospects of describing the observed universe in string theory, and using cosmological experiments to probe string theory. For the purposes of this short review, we focus on the limitations imposed by our…

The 1988 book, now free, with corrections and bookmarks (for pdf).