CONTINUATION FROM THE NUMBER OF FAMILY OF MATTER The next step outward brings the reaction products to the electron-photon calorimeter. The products traverse the superconducting coil, which creates a 15,000-gauss magnetic field at the axis of the device, and then enter the hadron calorimeter. This device, a series of iron plates separated by gas counters, also returns the magnetic flux, just as an iron core does in a conventional electromagnet. Aleph weighs 4,000 tons and cost about $60 million to build. Half a million channels of information must be read for each event, and the computer support necessary for the acquisition and later evaluation of the data is considerable. The data gathered in the first few months of operation of the two colliders have provided the best support yet adduced for the predictions of the electroweak theory. More important, they have delineated the curve describing the Z width with great precision. The overwhelming majority of...
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