Lattice quantum chromodynamics comes of age

Various aspects of the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) are discussed. Advances in computer technology have brought numerical simulation of QCD to a level of credibility that is expected to have a significant impact on scientific discovery. The development of improved lattice actions for describing the motion and interaction of quarks and gluons which refine the discretization of the quark action is studied. The improvement schemes use not only the shortest path to connect adjacent sites but also a combination of products of gluon matrices along longer, more circuitous paths between immediate and more distant neighbors.