Story of the W and Z (Paperback)

This is a first-hand account of one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century. In 1983, two groups of scientists working at CERN near Geneva collected data, which were subsequently shown to be consistent with the W and Z bosons. This work earned two of those scientists the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics. The author of this book, Peter Watkins, was a member of one of those groups. His book opens with a brief statement of the background, explaining in non-technical terms the theoretical developments that led to the prediction in the late 1960s of the existence of the W and Z bosons. He then moves on rapidly to describe the background to the experiments, explaining as he does so the problems that had to be overcome, and giving details of the accelerators, detectors and computers used in these very advanced- and difficult- experiments.