2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/194834Computations of the drag force on a heavy quark moving through a thermal state of strongly coupled N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory have appeared recently in hep-th/0605158, hep-ph/0605199, and hep-th/0605182. I compare the strength of this effect between N=4 gauge theory and QCD, using the static force between external quarks to normalize the 't Hooft coupling. Comparing N=4 and QCD at fixed energy density then leads to a relaxation time of roughly 2 fm/c for charm quarks moving through a quark-gluon plasma at T=250 MeV. This estimate should be regarded as preliminary because of the difficulties of comparing two such different theories.16 pages, 1 figure. v2: corrected estimate of eta/s, refs addedHigh Energy Physics - Theorytext