Memories from the W Boson Discovery

Abstract

The fascinating story of a major discovery at CERN is outlined. The bold decision to convert its most powerful, and only recently inaugurated, proton accelerator to a proton-antiproton collider led to the discovery of the W and Z bosons -- mediators of the weak interaction -- in a record time, at the experiments UA1 and UA2. The decisive roles of Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer, who received the 1984 Nobel Prize for physics, are underlined.