I give a pedagogical introduction to the modern theory of nuclear forces, Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD),which is a theory of quarks and gluons. I discuss the history and results from the collisions of heavy ions at ultrarelativistic energies, which the hope was the creation of a Quark-Gluon Plasma. There is a tsunami of experimental results, which has overwhelmed theory.

Robert Pisarski received his PhD from Princeton University in 1980. He joined the University of California,Santa Barbara as a Research Associate in 1981 and moved to Fermilab as an Associate Scientist in 1984. In 1989, he joined the US Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he is currently the Senior Scientist in the Physics Department. He received the Senior US Scientist Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2003). He was also elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society (2000).