Lattice QCD: from quark confinement to asymptotic freedom

According to the present understanding, the observed diversity of the strong interaction phenomena is described by Quantum Chromodynamics, a gauge field theory with only very few parameters. One of the fundamental questions in this context is how precisely the world of mesons and nucleons is related to the properties of the theory at high energies, where quarks and gluons are the important degrees of freedom. The lattice formulation of QCD combined with numerical simulations and standard perturbation theory are the tools that allow one to address this issue at a quantitative level.