The basic theoretical and experimental tools of heavy ion phenomenology are reviewed, including the recent application of the AdS/CFT correspondence to bulk QCD physics in which strongly-coupled QCD calculations are performed using 5 dimensional supergravity. Paying special attention to high momentum probes, which we argue provide a unique tool for studying the collective degrees of freedom for the quark-gluon plasma produced in these collisions, we discuss the qualitative successes of both perturbative QCD (pQCD) and AdS/CFT and propose novel experimental observables for falsifying one or both sets of calculations. The extension of AdS heavy quark drag to both hot and cold nuclear matter, giving greater confidence in the universality of those results, is presented. And the assumptions underpinning the pQCD derivations is investigated leading to quantitative estimates of a systematic theoretical error for perturbative predictions in jet quenching.