Story of the W and Z

by Peter Watkins

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521318754
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/08/1986
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 0.51(d)

Table of Contents

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.