Home News 50 years in the past, physicists thought they discovered the W boson....

50 years in the past, physicists thought they discovered the W boson. They hadn’t

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an computer illustration of streaks of yellow bouncing around in loops - showing how the debris from a proton-antiproton collision moved. the straighter path of a high-energy electron is also shown

The W particle might have been discovered — Science Information, August 21, 1971

Physicists distinguish 4 completely different sorts of pressure by which objects within the universe act upon one another: the robust nuclear pressure, the weak pressure, electromagnetism and gravity. The developed idea of particle physics outfits every pressure with a so-called intermediate particle.… Now, from an deserted silver mine at Park Metropolis, Utah, comes robust proof of the existence of the weak-force quantum, often known as the … W particle.

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The “robust proof” for this W particle, or W boson, fell aside below extra scrutiny. Physicists with CERN close to Geneva lastly caught the boson a couple of decade later (SN: 2/5/83, p. 84). Apart from serving to mediate the weak pressure, which governs sure varieties of radioactive decay, the W boson has additionally helped scientists catch the Higgs boson (SN: 7/28/12, p. 5). Weighing the W boson narrowed down the Higgs’ mass vary, making the Higgs simpler to search for. Physicists proceed unraveling W boson mysteries, equivalent to how the particles type and whether or not extra huge variations exist.