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The Conversation
The Conversation
Science
John Conway, Professor of Physics, University of California, Davis

A decade of science and trillions of collisions show the W boson is more massive than expected – a physicist on the team explains what it means for the Standard Model

Measuring the mass of W bosons took 10 years – and the result was not what physicists expected. PM Images/Digital Vision via Getty Images

“You can do it quickly, you can do it cheaply, or you can do it right. We did it right.” These were some of the opening remarks from David Toback, leader of the Collider Detector at Fermilab, as he announced the results of a decadelong experiment to measure the mass of a particle called the W boson.

I am a high energy particle physicist, and I am part of the team of hundreds of scientists that built and ran the Collider Detector at Fermilab in Illinois – known as CDF.

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