The Discovery of the W and Z Bosons at the CERN Proton- Antiproton Collider

This article describes the scientific and technical achievements that led to the discovery of the weak intermediate vector bosons, W ± and Z, from the original proposal to modify an existing high-energy proton accelerator into a proton-antiproton collider and its implementation at CERN, to the design, construction and operation of the detectors which provided the first evidence for the production and decay of these two fundamental particles.