A typical man-made shock wave results from the detonation of explosive materials. Also, complex shock wave structures appear in all supersonic flights. These all can range from weak shock waves associated with the use of any firearm up to shock waves resulting from nuclear explosions reaching enormous magnitudes. In descriptive terms, a shock wave is a very sharp, thin front through which there exists a sudden change in all flow properties, such as pressure, temperature, density, velocity and entropy. At standard atmospheric conditions the width of a shock wave front is about 2.5 Angstrom.
Shock waves appear in many forms and in various media.
In the Handbook of Shock Waves we have tried to cover as many as possible of these forms. Firstly, in Chapter 1, a brief historical description indicating milestones of shock wave research and activities starting in the sixteen century and continuing up to the end of the Second World War is given. It was decided to end the historical survey at 1945 since many of the post-war investigations are presented in the various chapters of the Handbook . General propagation laws governing shock wave transmission through matter is are outlined in Chapter 2, in which the basic equations governing shock wave propagation are presented. These equations are used in subsequent chapters.