Number 254 (Story #4), January 11, 1996 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein SWISS FACTORY TO PRODUCE Ws INSTEAD OF Zs . The Large Electron Positron collider at CERN now moves on to higher energies (see Update 251) and the prospective production of pairs of W bosons, the charged carriers of the weak nuclear force. Previously LEP was a prodigious manufacturer of the W's neutral sibling, the Z boson. With a mass almost one hundred times that of the proton, the Z takes a lot of energy to produce and then expires an instant later. Nevertheless, CERN physicists have observed more than 20 million Zs. By combining data from the four major experimental groups at LEP, they arrive at a Z mass of 91.1884 GeV, with an uncertainty of .0022 GeV. The sensitivity of the detectors is so great that lunar tidal effects and even the impact of heavy rainfall can be discerned in the data. (CERN Courier, November 1995.)