ONE summer night in 1982, about a month before the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) at CERN was due to start colliding beams again, the Italian particle physicist Carlo Rubbia was pacing up and down. He had a newspaper in his hand, and he was waving it around and raving at a colleague. The newspaper was French and the article that had upset him was about the forthcoming experimental run at the SPS. Not surprisingly the article described the two experiments at the collider -- called UA1 and UA2 -- from a French point of view.
According to the newspaper, UA2 was the French hope, while UA1 was a juggernaut belonging to CERN and Italy (even though three of the labs in the UA1 collaboration were French). The article portrayed UA2 as a small experiment, clever and cute. UA2 was David. UA1 was big, ugly and expensive -- not the kind of experiment you would build if you were going to do the physics of the decade. UA1 was Goliath. And it was pretty clear which experiment this French paper expected to succeed.
At least that is how Rubbia saw it, and he was angry and seemed even a little frightened. The David and Goliath story was one of Rubbia's favourite metaphors, but hitherto he had always assumed the role of David. "What are we going to do?" he yelled. "What's it going to do to the group when they see this sort of crap? What if they're right?"
In the January issue of of Physics World Gary Taubes presents a shortened version of chapter 7 of his book Nobel Dreams: Power, Deceit and the Ultimate Experiment (1986 Random House), which was based on an extended stay at CERN between August 1984 and April 1985. He describes the exciting story behind the race to find the W and Z bosons.