QCD AND ASYMPTOTIC FREEDOM - PERSPECTIVES AND PROSPECTS

QCD is now a mature theory, and it is possible to begin to view its pl ace in the conceptual universe of physics with an appropriate perspect ive. There is a certain irony in the achievements of QCD. For the prob lems which initially drove its development-specifically, the desire to understand in detail the force that holds atomic nuclei together, and later the desire to calculate the spectrum of hadrons and their inter actions - only limited insight has been achieved. However, I shall arg ue that QCD is actually more special and important a theory than one h ad any right to anticipate. In many ways, the importance of the soluti on transcends that of the original motivating problems. After elaborat ing on these quasiphilosophical remarks, I discuss two current frontie rs of physics that illustrate the continuing vitality of the ideas. Th e recent wealth of beautiful precision experiments measuring the param eters of the standard model have made it possible to consider the unif ication of couplings in unprecedented quantitative detail. One central result emerging from these developments is a tantalizing hint of virt ual supersymmetry. The possibility of phase transitions in matter at t emperatures of order approximately 10(2) MeV, governed by QCD dynamics , is of interest from several points of view. Besides having a certain intrinsic grandeur, the question ''Does the nature of matter change q ualitatively, as it is radically heated?'' is important for cosmology, relevant to planned high-energy heavy-ion collision experiments, and provides a promising arena for numerical simulations of QCD. Recent nu merical work seems to be consistent with expectations suggested by ren ormalization group analysis of the potential universality classes of t he QCD chiral phase transition; specifically, that the transition is s econd-order for two species of massless quarks but first order otherwi se. There is an interesting possibility of long-range correlations in heavy ion collisions due to the creation of large regions of the misal igned chiral condensate. Finally, at the end, there is a brief discuss ion on the relation between scaling violations and running of the coup ling. Some statements made later in the conference seemed to indicate that the relationship between these concepts is commonly misunderstood , so I'm smuggling this bit in even though it wasn't part of the origi nal talk.