Simon van der Meer and Carlo Rubbia celebrate their awarding of the Nobel Prize in 1984 with a toast at CERN.

CERN's 1984 Nobel prizewinners Carlo Rubbia (left) and Simon van der Meer, who were awarded the prize for their roles in discovering the W+, W- and Z0 particles, the carriers of Nature's weak force. Carlo Rubbia's work allowed CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) to collide protons and antiprotons, while Simon van der Meer's technical virtuosity made the project possible