About 600 international scientists gathered in Beijing Monday to discuss "string theory", with which they hope to explain every physical phenomenon in the world.

At the inaugural of the International Conference on String Theory 2006, Dr. Shing-Tung Yau, a Harvard mathematics professor and Fields Medalist, said the international academic community had been working on interactions between mathematics and physics for the past ten years.

Like a guitar string that has been tuned by stretching under tension across the guitar, the elementary particles in particle accelerators could be thought of as the "musical notes" or excitation modes of elementary strings.

Combining the General Theory of Relativity and the Quantum Theory, the string theory could be employed to explain the origins of the universe, black holes and other physical phenomena.

Prof. Yau is leading the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Morningside Institute of Mathematics in researching string theory. "We shall bring more new Chinese faces to string theory in the near future," he said.

Conference organizers have also arranged satellite workshops in Hangzhou, Xi'an and Lanzhou. World renowned scientists, including 2004 Nobel physics laureate David Gross, Edward Witten and Stephen Hawking, are to deliver 53 lectures at the six-day conference.

The CAS and Zhejiang University are hosting the conference, which is also supported by the US National Science Foundation.

(Xinhua News Agency June 20, 2006)