The quest for quark soup

The paper concerns the experimental search for quark-gluon plasma. The theory of a quark-gluon plasma is first given. Then the method which researchers hope will create the quark-gluon plasma is described; the idea is to use heavy ion beams in, the CERN SPS. The CERN 'heavy-ion programme' involves research groups mainly from CERN, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Gellsellschaft fuer Schwerionenforschung. The experiments in the research programme are outlined, together with the detector equipment employed in the experiments. (UK)