Near-term prospects for information on b decay

The weak decay of the b quark is one of the more hopeful ways of learning about the relations among the three families. Most of the experimental information on B decay in the next few years will come from the large magnetic detector CLEO at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring. Before I give you my estimate of what we will (and will not) learn, let me remind you of what we already know. As Tony Loomis told you yesterday, the b quark decays (it could have been stable). The results are consistent with the standard model. Some specific other models can be ruled out, but at present a wide range of non-standard models are allowed