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slash UK slash AI for people. Welcome to Science Talk, the weekly podcast of Scientific American

for the seven days starting July 16th, 2008. I'm Steve

Murski. This week on the podcast, something for the complete idiots out there, me included.

We'll talk with Scientific American editor George Musser, who is not a complete idiot,

plus we'll test your knowledge about some recent science in the news.

George Musser is our resident astronomy and physics editor.

He's the author of the brand new book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to String Theory.

To become something less than a complete idiot, I spoke to George in the library at Scientific American.

What is string theory?

I mean, everybody's heard of string theory. I think it's been on the cover of Time magazine, probably, or Newsweek, certainly on our covers. And everybody talks about it as some kind of newfangled big deal in physics, which it is. What is it?

That's a good question.

Because the theory itself is being developed by scientists.

It's not a fully formed theory.

So what I'll tell you, the summary version I'll give you, is the current level of understanding.

But what's so wonderful about string theory is it seems to open up new levels even below that.

One of the things in your book that I had not seen before was that string theory really

goes back about 80 years.

...