Top Quark--Heavy Stuff:

With the recent news on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN searching for the Higgs boson, it was interesting to relive the discovery of its related particle the Top Quark. DOE's R&D Accomplishments (http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/topquark.html) has a special feature on the Top Quark with some other articles and information that I found helpful. This article makes the case that the top quark has been found. "This is heavy stuff Doc" (both literally-as the top quark is the heaviest known fermion--and figuratively--relating how impressively serious the discovery), as Marti McFly would say in "Back to the Future", and Doc Brown would wonder why everything was so massive in the future? All matter antics aside, this is quite an impressive find, and was interesting to go back and read through some thirteen years later. The diagrams, charts, and graphs positioned throughout the article were highly successful in describing the various aspects of the top quark research. Sinervo's Introduction to this paper was helpful and descriptive in laying the case for the existance of the top quark, as well as explaining what the standard model is about. It is amazing to see where we have come in particle physics, and thirteen years after the top quark discovery it will be exciting to see where this field will take us.
    posted by er.dom - Sep 11, 2008 5:06 PM