The Argonne v18 potential, published in 1995, has become a standard starting point for hundreds of few- and many-body calculations over the past twenty years. It is one of several potentials formulated to fit, with a chi-square per datum near unity, the Nijmegen partial wave analysis of 1993, which contains over 4300 pp and np cross sections, polarizations, asymmetries, etc. Its completeness -- with pp, np, and nn interactions specified and a full electromagnetic potential included -- and its simple local structure, make it the potential of choice for quantum Monte Carlo calculations, which have made great strides over the intervening years. It has also been used by many other configuration-space methods, including Faddeev, hyperspherical harmonic, and no-core shell model calculations for finite nuclei, and hypernetted chain and Brueckner-Hartree-Fock calculations of nuclear matter and neutron stars.

This talk will describe the origins and evolution of the potential, give a survey of some of the many calculations that have been made with it, and discuss some of the possible improvements for a next-generation model.

Argonne Physics Division Colloquium Schedule