Top quark from the Tevatron to LHC

The history of the detection of the heaviest elementary particle, the top quark, at the Tevatron accelerator using the CDF detector is presented. The basic channels of detecting the top quark and the methods of determining its mass are described. The importance and the strategy of measuring the top quark mass in various channels of the $$ \mathop {tt}\limits^ - $$ -pair decay at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with a cm energy of 14 TeV, an operation which is expected to begin in 2007, is discussed. The investigations into the physics of the top quark at the earliest stage of the LHC operation are described.