In 1977, the RAL and QMUL groups, along with John Dowell 's group at the University of Birmingham and Muirhead - Astbury's former tutor at Liverpool - joined Carlo Rubbia in the UA1 collaboration at CERN. The Super Proton Synchrotron which had been designed by John Adam was converted under Rubbia's guidance to a collider, the Super Proton–Antiproton Synchrotron. The British contingent created and operated the large hadron calorimeter. Rubbia and Astbury became joint spokespeople for the UA1 project. Later, the existence of the W particle was confirmed, gaining Rubbia and Simon van der Meer a Nobel Prize.