In the last few months it's been difficult to find a particle‐theory preprint that doesn't begin with: “Considerable interest in 10‐dimensional unified superstring theories has been sparked by the recent discovery of Green and Schwarz that such theories are free of anomalies and, very likely, finite, if the gauge group is SO(32) or E8×E8”—or words to that effect. “Superstring theory is the only plausible approach to quantum gravity anyone has ever come up with,” asserts Edward Witten (Princeton). “But until Green and Schwarz found the generalized anomaly cancellation, it was still conceivable that this beautiful structure had little to do with reality. Now,” Witten contends, “such skepticism has become hard to justify.”

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