Farewell to Utah's W‐particle

Last year a group at the University of Utah said that the anomalous muon flux they had been observing in cosmic rays since 1966 was consistent with the observation of a W particle or intermediate vector boson (PHYSICS TODAY, November 1971, page 17). At the XVI Conference on High‐Energy Physics (held at both the University of Chicago and the National Accelerator Laboratory) in September the group, Haven E. Bergeson, Gary Carlson, Jack Keuffel and James Morrison announced what Keuffel called “the obituary of the Utah effect.” Keuffel told us, “Alas, no W's. It was fun while it lasted!”