Eur. Phys. J. H 41, 303–325 (2016)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjh/e2016-70048-7

Personal recollection

Waiting for the W

and the Higgs

Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA

^a e-mail: mjt@bnl.gov

Received: 28 July 2016
Received in final form: 5 August 2016
Published online: 6 October 2016

Abstract

The search for the left-handed W^± bosons, the proposed quanta of the weak interaction, and the Higgs boson, which spontaneously breaks the symmetry of unification of electromagnetic and weak interactions, has driven elementary-particle physics research from the time that I entered college to the present and has led to many unexpected and exciting discoveries which revolutionized our view of subnuclear physics over that period. In this article I describe how these searches and discoveries have intertwined with my own career.