Connecting nuclear physics to quantum chromodynamics

I discuss how effective theories and numerical simulations of Quantum Chromodynamics are together helping us understand the interaction between neutrons and protons. Explicit numerical evaluation of the QCD path integral, using lattice methods and super-computers, appears to be the best option for calculations of QCD in the non-perturbative regime. I show that complementary information is provided by effective theories, which can help to relate these intensive "lattice QCD" calculations to nuclear-physics experiments. I place particular emphasis on the way in which the long-distance symmetries of QCD observed in lattice simulations constrain the interactions of neutrons and protons with one another, and I show how this leads to predictions for electron scattering from light nuclei.