Mastering nature's strong force

Physicists have demonstrated their grasp of the force that binds the atomic nucleus by learning how to identify the exotic particles it spawns, called glueballs. This article describes two lines of work which have lead to glimpses of these particles. One is a 20 year quest to extract accurate predictions from quantum chromodynamics by so-called lattice calculations. The other is a quarter century of accelerator experiments that have observed hundreds of short-lived particles, known as resonances, which can now be compared with the theoretical predictions to identify any glueballs lurking among them