For physicists who study elementary particles and quantum field theory, the 1970s was a golden age. It saw the experimental confirmation of the electroweak theory, and the extension of that thinking would lead us to a successful theory of strong interactions as well. All the fundamental forces of nature, except for gravity, would be unified in what became known as the “Standard Model.” By the end of 1973, there was some experimental verification of the electroweak theory. Weinberg agrees to write The First Three Minutes, which was published in 1977. Louise visits Stanford Law School, accompanied by Weinberg, who finds his host department cold. In 1977, he collaborates with Ben Lee of Fermilab, who tragically died in a car accident later that year. Louise is invited to teach at University of Texas Law School, in the summer of 1979, after which she was offered a full professorship. The Weinbergs taught in their respective universities and met in Cambridge in the holidays. Weinberg’s Nobel Prize, shared with Salam and Glashow, is announced in October 1979, ahead of the ceremony that December.

The electroweak unification appears mainly in the neutral current processes. The transition probabilities of all of them are predicted in terms of the weak mixing angle. Measuring the weak mixing angle.

Theory predicts the existence of three vector bosons, W+, W− and Z0. It does not predict their masses, but precisely states how they are related with two measured quantities: the Fermi constant and the weak mixing angle. The UA1 experiment and the discovery of the vector bosons.

The precision tests of the electroweak theory performed at the LEP electron–positron collider and at the Tevatron proton–antiproton collider.

The last missing element of the SM, the Higgs boson. The spontaneous symmetry breaking and the boson. The searches at LEP and at the Tevatron. The Large Hadron Collider and the ATLAS and CMS experiments. The discovery of 2012. Checking Higgs physics, measuring its mass and width, its spin and parity, its couplings to the bosons and to the fermions. All agree with the predictions of the Standard Model, so completing the experimental verification of its basic building blocks.