The end of the alphabet In 1983, CERN announced the discovery of the long-sought W and Z particles. The announcement was so momentous that, the following year, two CERN scientists involved in the discovery – Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer – received the #NobelPrize in Physics. The discovery of the W and Z bosons supported the need to build #LEP, which became a veritable Z factory first, and then a W factory, and permitted scientists to study the properties of both bosons with extreme precis