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The experimental discovery of the W and Z bosons at CERN in 1983 confirmed the detailed predictions of the electroweak theory, which unifies the electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces. After a brief introduction to the most important ideas in this force unification, this account describes the antiproton--proton collider project at CERN. This provided the energetic collisions which enabled the W and Z bosons, which are around one hundred times heavier than a proton, to be produced for the first time.
These heavy particles are produced only very rarely in such collisions and as they decay within 10s, their discovery relied on sophisticated detectors and analysis techniques. This article describes how the evidence for these new particles was extracted from the study of millions of antiproton--proton collisions and includes a first hand account of the exciting experimental runs which led to the discovery of the W , W and Z0 bosons in 1983. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]