Title:

The Discovery of Truth:  How the Top Quark Was Found

Abstract:


The theory that describes the fundamental building blocks of our 
world and the forces that hold them together to form atoms, 
molecules and macroscopic structures predicted seventeen years 
ago that a undiscovered type of hadronic matter had to exist.  This 
prediction of the "standard model" is so fundamental to the model 
that were it proved wrong, our picture of the world would require 
radical revision.

Two  teams of scientists, working independently at the world's 
highest energy matter-antimatter collider, announced in February 
1995 the discovery of this new type of matter, the top quark (also 
known as "truth").  The top quark is extremely massive, which 
explains in part why it has been so difficult to prove that it exists.  In 
this lecture, the search and discovery of the top quark will be 
described, and the impact of this finding on our understanding of 
the world will be explored.