The Power of the Standard Model

Making use of the mathematical basis of the Standard Model plus incredibly precise data from many challenging experiments, it became possible to estimate the mass of the missing top quark.

Using calculational techniques pioneered by Gerardus 't Hooft and Martinus J.G. Veltman (The Nobel Prize in Physics 1999), physicists could calculate the indirect effects of the top quarks on other measurements. They recognized that the top quark must be much more massive than any of the other quarks, around 20 to 30 times heavier than the previous heaviest quark, the b quark.

These methods were important not only for the estimations of the top quark mass, but they were the key to understanding the full structure and consistency of the Standard Model. Before 't Hooft and Veltman's work in 1971 and 1972, no one knew how to calculate the predictions of the Standard Model beyond a very approximate answer.