Exploring Qcd with Heavy Ion Collisions

After decades of painstaking research, the field of heavy ion physics has reached an exciting new era. Evidence is mounting that we can create a high temperature, high density, strongly interacting “bulk matter” state in the laboratory — perhaps even a quark-gluon plasma. This strongly interacting matter is likely to provide qualitative new information about the fundamental strong interaction, described by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD). These lectures provide a summary of experimental heavy ion research, with particular emphasis on recent results from RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) at Brookhaven National Laboratory. In addition, we will discuss what has been learned so far and the outstanding puzzles.