QCD at 50: Golden Anniversary, Golden Insights, Golden Opportunities

Abstract

The bulk of this paper centers around the tension between confinement and freedom in QCD. I discuss how it can be understood heuristically as a manifestation of self-adhesive glue and how it fits within the larger contexts of energy-time uncertainty and $\text{real virtuality}$. I discuss the possible emergence of $\text{treeons}$ as a tangible ingredient of (at least) pure gluon $SU(3)$. I propose $\text{flux channeling}$ as a method to address that and allied questions about triality flux numerically, and indicate how to implement it for electric and magnetic flux in material systems. That bulk is framed with broad-stroke, necessarily selective sketches of the past and possible future of strong interaction physics. At the end, I've added an expression of gratitude for my formative experience at the Erice school, in 1973.

Comments: Keynote speech at 2023 Majorana Summer School (Erice), also delivered elsewhere. 30 pages, 9 figures