Meson-Nucleon Physics: Past, Present and Future

Abstract

We will present some thoughts on the following topics: 1. Major highlights in the history of strong interactions such as isospin, the pion, SU(3), quarks, the color degree of freedom, QCD. 2. Topics of high current interest such as quark confinement, the origin of mass, the search for the gluon degrees of freedom, chiral symmetry, flavor symmetry, regularities in the properties of the light-baryon families (parity doublets, clusters) decay patterns, hadronization, chiral restoration, effective Lagrangians and their degrees of freedom. 3. The input parameters for QCD and for effective models. 4. Hadron physics as a necessary aspect of precision tests of the Standard Model and of the Search for New Physics.