Say it in Six 2020

In my research, I work with a duality out of string theory, referred to as holography. String theory is our best candidate for a theory that can describe things like black holes and the early universe where the energy density is very very high. The most basic building blocks in this theory are strings, which are smaller than atoms or even quarks. Directly detecting something that small is not likely to happen in the near future. Yet, this duality out of the framework of string theory has had recent unexpected applications to materials that could help us build new technologies, like next-generation computers. You probably won't be able to guess where fundamental physics research will take us in 20 years. Embrace the disassembly of your expectations.

- Erin Blauvelt