  The chiral Potts model continues to pose particular challenges in statistical
mechanics: it is ``exactly solvable'' in the sense that it satisfies the
Yang-Baxter relation, but actually obtaining the solution is not easy. Its free
energy was calculated in 1988 and the order parameter was conjectured in full
generality a year later.
  However, a derivation of that conjecture had to wait until 2005. Here we
discuss that derivation.
