Discovery of top quark
MAR 02, 2016
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031165
On this day in 1995, physicists at Fermilab near Chicago announced the discovery of the top quark. Quarks are fundamental components of matter, and by 1977 five (up, down, charm, strange, and bottom) had been discovered. But theorists had predicted the existence of a sixth, and in 1995 physicists using the Tevatron particle accelerator finally found the top quark. The top is the heaviest of all known elementary particles, including the Higgs boson. This Physics Today article from last April digs into the bizarre yet intriguing properties of the top quark.
Date in History: 2 March 1995
© 2016 American Institute of Physics
