Physicists have stumbled upon a discovery that might link string field theory and quantum mechanics, which could very well make string theory the foundation of all physics.

It’s not all of the string field theory that has been put under a magnifying glass, just a version of it, called M-theory. M-theory was first imagined by Edward Witten in 1995 and its announcement started a new wave of researched that is known in the science world as the second superstring revolution.

Up until now, scientists have used quantum mechanics to verify the string field theory, but now they’ve done a 180 and are doing it the other way around: they’re using string filed theory to validate quantum mechanics. The reason why this is absolutely shocking is that it was quantum mechanics that we’ve all considered to be a general truth and string field theory as being the outlandish theory.

Professor Itzhak Bars, from the University of Southern California, gave a short statement that seems to sum up some of the most complex theories in recent physics history:

This could solve the mystery of where quantum mechanics comes from.

Bars, along with Dmitry Rychov, a PhD student, wrote their paper in which they discuss the idea of commutation rules, which are the fundamental principal of quantum mechanics, could actually come from the geometry that comes from the joining and splitting of strings.

Bar continued:

Our argument can be presented in bare bones in a hugely simplified mathematical structure. The essential ingredient is the assumption that all matter is made up of strings and that the only possible interaction is joining/splitting as specified in their version of string field theory.[…] The commutation rules don’t have an explanation from a more fundamental perspective, but have been experimentally verified down to the smallest distances probed by the most powerful accelerators. Clearly the rules are correct, but they beg for an explanation of their origins in some physical phenomena that are even deeper.

This is not the first time that scientists have tried to join string field theory and quantum mechanics together; ever since string field theory came into existence in the 1970’s, scientists have been trying to connect the two. String field theory has managed to resolve the inconsistencies of quantum gravity and proposed that the string, and not the point, was the fundamental unit of matter.