Strings for Quantumchromodynamics

During the last decade, intriguing dualities between gauge and string theory have been found and explored. They provide a novel window on strongly coupled gauge physics, including QCD-like models. Based on a short historical review of modern string theory, we shall explain how so-called AdS/CFT dualities emerged at the end of the 1990s. Some of their concrete implications and remarkable recent progress are then illustrated for the simplest example, namely the multicolor limit of N = 4 SYM theory in four dimensions. We end with a few comments on existing extensions to more realistic models and applications, in particular to the sQGP. This text is meant as a nontechnical introduction to gauge/string dualities for (particle) physicists.