CERN’s first discovery

Giuseppe Fidecaro, who was part of the team that made CERN’s first discovery, is pictured here some years later with Maria Fidecaro, as they carry out an experiment at CERN’s second accelerator. (Image: CERN)

Using the proton beam from the Synchrocyclotron (SC) accelerator, CERN’s first experiment discovers a rare process: the decay of a particle known as the pion into an electron and a neutrino, in accordance with the predictions of the weak interaction theory. This first discovery is made only one month after the start-up of the experiment.