The strong force is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, responsible for binding protons and neutrons together inside the nucleus of an atom. At a more microscopic level, the strong force is the interaction between quarks via gluons, and Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory that describes this interaction.
The theory received a breakthrough in the 1970s when several key figures, including David Gross (the rapporteur), Frank Wilczek (founding director of the Tsung-Dao Lee Institute), and Hugh Politzer, were awarded with the 2004 Nobel Prize for their discovery of the "asymptotically free" nature of QCD.
Over the past decades, QCD has been subjected to rigorous experimental tests and has led to an increasingly deeper understanding of the microstructure and interaction laws of atomic nuclei and nucleons. In this lecture, Prof. Gross will introduce and discuss the past, present and future of quantum chromodynamics.