As the energy of the accelerators at Fermilab has increased, so has the potential for discovery. In 1977 a series of experiments with the 400 GeV Main Ring culminated in the discovery of the bottom quark. Research and development of a proton-antiproton colliding beams program continued into the 1980s and on October 13, 1985 the first collisions were detected at CDF. By 1995, with energies as high as 1.8 TeV, the Tevatron's colliding detector experiments at CDF and DZero discovered the top quark. In July 2000, the DONUT collaboration announced the first direct observation of the tau neutrino.

Records of these discoveries are available from the archives with collaboration approval. Please contact the archivist for assistance.

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