Tau Physics

The pure leptonic or semileptonic character of tau decays makes them a good laboratory to test the structure of the weak currents and the universality of their couplings to the gauge bosons. The hadronic $\tau$ decay modes constitute an ideal tool for studying low--energy effects of the strong interactions in very clean conditions. New physics phenomena, such as a non-zero $m_{\nu_\tau}$ or violations of conservation laws can also be searched for with tau decays. The present experimental and theoretical status of tau physics is summarized.