Heineman prize celebrates superstring theory

Theoretical physicist Pierre Ramond, who laid the foundation for the superstring model of the universe, has won the 2015 Dannie Heineman prize for mathematical physics.

The award, given by the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society, has been a precursor to a Nobel prize several times.

Ramond, a professor of physics at the University of Florida, introduced the first ideas about superstring theory in a 1971 paper. The theory is an attempt to incorporate general relativity and quantum mechanics into a single model of the forces and particles in the universe.