Requiem for a string: Charting the rise and fall of a theory of everything

In fact, all the “easy” versions of supersymmetry have been ruled out, and many of the more complicated ones, too. The dearth of evidence has slaughtered so many members of the supersymmetric family that the whole idea is on very shaky ground, with physicists beginning to have conferences with titles like “Beyond Supersymmetry” and “Oh My God, I Think I Wasted My Career.”