the strong coupling regime of either theory using the weak coupling limit of the other, on the other hand this makes it hard to test directly since it is not easy to find situations where approximate computations in both theories have an overlapping domain of validity.

In [@Berenstein:2002jq] a way out of this difficulty was presented by introducing a Penrose limit of the $\mbox{AdS}_5\times S^5$ background. Taking the Penrose limit one gets the maximally supersymmetric pp-wave background [@Blau:2001ne; @Blau:2002dy] where type IIB string theory can be quantized [@Metsaev:2001bj; @Metsaev:2002re]. On the gauge theory side the Penrose limit corresponds to considering a certain sector of the operators. This enables one to compare directly the spectrum of operators in the planar limit of ${\mathcal{N}}=4$ SYM to the energy spectrum of quantum strings on the pp-wave. In [@Bertolini:2002nr] an alternative Penrose limit of $\mbox{AdS}_5\times S^5$ was found also giving the maximally supersymmetric background but in a coordinate system with an explicit space-like isometry [@Michelson:2002wa; @Bertolini:2002nr]. As explained in [@Harmark:2006ta] having this explicit isometry makes it particularly well-suited to study the $SU(2)$ sector of ${\mathcal{N}}=4$ SYM.

Building on the Penrose limit of [@Berenstein:2002jq] many very interesting results in matching gauge theory and string theory 