I like to think that Einstein would look at string theory’s journey and smile, enjoying the theory’s remarkable geometrical features while feeling kinship with fellow travelers on the long and winding road toward unification.

Understanding requires insight. Insight must be anchored.

For most people, the major hurdle in grasping modern insights into the nature of the universe is that these developments are usually phrased using mathematics.

Our eyes only see the big dimensions, but beyond those there are others that escape detection because they are so small.

Over the centuries, monumental upheavals in science have emerged time and again from following the leads set out by mathematics.

String theory envisions a multiverse in which our universe is one slice of bread in a big cosmic loaf. The other slices would be displaced from ours in some extra dimension of space.

A unified theory would put us at the doorstep of a vast universe of things that we could finally explore with precision.