Story of the W and Z

This is a first-hand account of one of the most important scientific discoveries of the twentieth century.

Peter Watkins (Author)

9780521318754, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 8 May 1986

256 pages
24.4 x 17 x 1.3 cm, 0.41 kg

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.

Part I. The Background: 1. Introduction
2. Inside the atom
3. Quarks and leptons
4. Unification of forces
Part II. The Objective: 5. The experimental test
6. How do we recognise a W or Z boson?
Part III. The Tools for the Search: 7. Accelerators and CERN
8. Detectors
9. The UA1 experiment
Part IV. The Search: 10. Installation and the early runs
11. The search for the W boson
12. The search for the Z boson
13. The search continues
Part V. The Future: 14. What next?
Appendix.

Subject Areas: Physics [PH]