Ryan Milton Rohm (born 22 December 1957, Gaston, North Carolina) is an American string theorist.
 He is one of four physicists known as the Princeton string quartet, and is responsible for the development of heterotic string theory along with David Gross, Jeffrey A. Harvey and Emil Martinec, the other members of the Princeton String Quartet.
In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings.
 It describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with each other.
 On distance scales larger than the string scale, a string looks just like an ordinary particle, with its mass, charge, and other properties determined by the vibrational state of the string.
 In string theory, one of the many vibrational states of the string corresponds to the graviton, a quantum mechanical particle that carries gravitational force.
 Thus string theory is a theory of quantum gravity.
Hugh David Politzer ( ; born August 31, 1949) is an American theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology.
 He shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics with David Gross and Frank Wilczek for their discovery of asymptotic freedom in quantum chromodynamics.
Burt Ovrut is an American theoretical physicist most famous for his work on heterotic string theory.
 He is currently Professor of Theoretical High Energy Physics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Brian Randolph Greene (born February 9, 1963) is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician, and string theorist.
 He has been a professor at Columbia University since 1996 and chairman of the World Science Festival since co-founding it in 2008.
 Greene has worked on mirror symmetry, relating two different Calabi–Yau manifolds (concretely, relating the conifold to one of its orbifolds).
 He also described the flop transition, a mild form of topology change, showing that topology in string theory can change at the conifold point.
The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next is a 2006 book by the theoretical physicist Lee Smolin about the problems with string theory.
 Subtitled "The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next", the book strongly criticizes string theory and its prominence in contemporary theoretical physics, on the grounds that string theory has yet to come up with a single prediction that can be verified using any technology that is likely to be feasible within our lifetimes.
 Smolin also focuses on the difficulties faced by research in quantum gravity, and by current efforts to come up with a theory explaining all four fundamental interactions.
 The book is broadly concerned with the role of controversy and diversity of approaches in scientific processes and ethics.
Erik Peter Verlinde (] ; born 21 January 1962) is a Dutch theoretical physicist and string theorist.
 He is the identical twin brother of physicist Herman Verlinde.
 The Verlinde formula, which is important in conformal field theory and topological field theory, is named after him.
 His research deals with string theory, gravity, black holes and cosmology.
 Currently, he works at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Amsterdam.
In string theory, a heterotic string is a closed string (or loop) which is a hybrid ('heterotic') of a superstring and a bosonic string.
 There are two kinds of heterotic string, the heterotic SO(32) and the heterotic "E" × "E", abbreviated to HO and HE.
 Heterotic string theory was first developed in 1985 by David Gross, Jeffrey Harvey, Emil Martinec, and Ryan Rohm (the so-called "Princeton String Quartet"), in one of the key papers that fueled the first superstring revolution.
Andrew Eben Strominger ( ; born 1955) is an American theoretical physicist who is the Director of Harvard's Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature.
 He has made significant contributions to quantum gravity and string theory.
 These include his work on Calabi-Yau compactification and topology change in string theory, and on the stringy origin of black hole entropy.
 He is a senior fellow at the Society of Fellows, and is the Gwill E. York Professor of Physics.
David Jonathan Gross ( ; born February 19, 1941) is an American theoretical physicist and string theorist.
 Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom.
 David Gross is the Chancellor’s Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and was formerly the KITP director and holder of their Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics .
 He is also a faculty member in the UC Santa Barbara Physics Department and is currently affiliated with the Institute for Quantum Studies at Chapman University in California.
 He is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Question: Heterotic string theory was first developed by what American theoretical physicist and string theorist who was awarded the 2004 Nobel Price in Physics along with Frank Wilczek?
Answer: David Jonathan Gross