STRINGS THEORY

Relativistic quantum field theory has worked very well to describe the observed behaviors and properties of elementary particles. But the theory itself only works well when gravity is so weak that it can be neglected. Particle theory only works when we pretend gravity doesn't exist.
General relativity has yielded a wealth of insight into the Universe, the orbits of planets, the evolution of stars and galaxies, the Big Bang and recently observed black holes and gravitational lenses. However, the theory itself only works when we pretend that the Universe is purely classical and that quantum mechanics is not needed in our description of Nature.
String interactions don't occur at one point but are spread out in a way that leads to more sensible quantum behavior. String theory is believed to close this gap.
Originally, string theory was proposed as an explanation for the observed relationship between mass and spin for certain particles called hadrons, which include the proton and neutron. Things didn't work out, though, and Quantum Chromodynamics eventually proved a better theory for hadrons.
But particles in string theory arise as excitations of the string, and included in the excitations of a string in string theory is a particle with zero mass and two units of spin.
If there were a good quantum theory of gravity, then the particle that would carry the gravitational force would have zero mass and two units of spin. This has been known by theoretical physicists for a long time. This theorized particle is called the graviton.
This led early string theorists to propose that string theory be applied not as a theory of hadronic particles, but as a theory of quantum gravity, the unfulfilled fantasy of theoretical physics in the particle and gravity communities for decades.
But it wasn't enough that there be a graviton predicted by string theory. One can add a graviton to quantum field theory by hand, but the calculations that are supposed to describe Nature become useless. This is because, as illustrated in the diagram above, particle interactions occur at a single point of spacetime, at zero distance between the interacting particles. For gravitons, the mathematics behaves so badly at zero distance that the answers just don't make sense. In string theory, the strings collide over a small but finite distance, and the answers do make sense.
This doesn't mean that string theory is not without its deficiencies. But the zero distance behavior is such that we can combine quantum mechanics and gravity, and we can talk sensibly about a string excitation that carries the gravitational force.
This was a very great hurdle that was overcome for late 20th century physics, which is why so many young people are willing to learn the grueling complex and abstract mathematics that is necessary to study a quantum theory of interacting strings. 

 String interactions don't occur at one point but are spread out in a way that leads to more sensible quantum behavior.
 Particle physics interactions can occur at zero distance -- but Einstein's theory of gravity makes no sense at zero distance.