The top quark: an unbiased tale

In the world of high-energy physics, experimental teams publishing the results of a search for some new phenomenon - let's call it a snark - usually telegraph the results via a code word in the title of the paper. If the statistical significance for the snark is weak or non-existent, the title of the paper will contain the words 'Search for the snark...' or 'Limits on snark properties...'. If, however, the statistical significance is beyond reproach, the paper might be called 'Observation of the snark?' or, more dramatically, 'Discovery of the snark...'. But there is a nether world where the statistical significance for the snark might be too strong to ignore but too weak to claim a discovery. It is precisely this situation in which the CDF collaboration at Fermilab, near Chicago, found itself in late 1993. The 500 or so physicists in the team were searching for the top quark -- the sixth and presumably last fundamental constituent of the Standard Model of particle physics. The result of their efforts was a mammoth 61-page paper in the journal Physical Review D (50 2966) with the unwieldy title, 'Evidence for top quark production in p-bar-p collisions at √ s = 1.8 TeV'. The word 'evidence' was chosen carefully. This book by Kent Staley tells the story of how the discovery was made. (U.K.)