The L3 experiment is a collaboration involving more than fifty institutes from all over the world. They have built a huge detector which detects particles produced in the collision of electrons and positrons circulating in the LEP ring. The head of the experiment is the Nobel prize laureate Samuel C.C. Ting.

The number, energy and species of particles produced in these collisions vary a lot, making their detection and identification a very challenging task. The detector is therefore extremely complex and records a large amount of information in the form of electronic signals. These data, which are stored and analyzed with the help of computers, enable physicists to gain insight into the properties of the fundamental particles from which all matter is made and the forces by which they interact.