Konwersatorium im. Leopolda Infelda

Some properties of Nature seem at first to defy understanding, so it is astonishing when they yield to a mathematical treatment. One example is related to the strong nuclear force. At large distances and low energies, quarks and the glue binding them together become strongly interacting, making the theory very difficult to describe mathematically. On the other hand, at high energies and short distances we can describe the interactions between quarks very well using Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). One of the most interesting developments in recent years has been the discovery by Seiberg that in supersymmetric theories one can describe the long range physics in terms of simple dual theories similar to the original QCD. In this talk I describe the recent developments in this area, applications to phenomenology, and how the relation of Seiberg duality to hidden local symmetry in pion physics might allow one to establish dualities in non-supersymmetric theories.