= Discovery of asymptotic freedom and the 2004 Nobel Prize
<David Gross> and <Frank Wilczek>, and independently <H. David Politzer>, published their one-<loop order> <Non-Abelian gauge theory> results in adjacent 1973 Physical Review Letters papers. Both established a high-<energy> route to <weak coupling>; extrapolating into the low-<energy> region was a separate dynamical problem.<Ultraviolet Behavior of Non-Abelian Gauge Theories by David J. Gross and Frank Wilczek>[1973, p. 1345, acknowledgment of the independent calculation]{ref}<Reliable Perturbative Results for Strong Interactions? by Hugh David Politzer>[1973, p. 1348, low-energy hypotheses versus the asymptotic result]{ref}
The three shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering <asymptotic freedom> in the theory of the <strong interaction>. <David Gross>'s Nobel lecture describes the unexpected sign and their comparison of independent calculations.<The discovery of asymptotic freedom and the emergence of QCD by David J. Gross>[2005 reprint, p. 837, award footnote; p. 843, discovery narrative]{ref} In his lecture The Dilemma of Attribution, <H. David Politzer> emphasizes that the prize marks a wider community's work and that a tidy prize-centered history hides how discovery actually proceeds.<The Dilemma of Attribution by Hugh David Politzer>[Lecture of 8 December 2004, pp. 1–2 and 6–9]{ref}
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