The results continue to pour out of the LHC’s first production run. This week, the folks behind the CMS detector have announced the submission of a paper to Physics Letters that describes a test of some forms of string theory. If this form of the theory were right in this case, the LHC should have been able to produce small black holes that would instantly decay (and not, as some had feared, devour the Earth). But a look at the data obtained by CMS shows that a signature of the black holes’ decay is notably absent.

String theory is an attempt to deal with the fact that the two major theories in physics, quantum mechanics and relativity, are fundamentally incompatible. It manages to merge the two by positing a set of extra dimensions beyond the usual four. We don’t see these because they’re tightly wrapped within a tiny radius that is inapproachable at normal energies.

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LHC spots no black holes, eliminates some versions of string theory