A sound wave is similar to a shock wave in the way it looks, but the two are not the same. While a sound wave can be described as the ripples created when you drop a small rock in a bucket of water, a shock wave is faster and not as smooth. If you were to draw a picture of a perfect sound wave, it would be a smooth line, up and down by the same amount. If you were to draw a picture of a shock wave, it would be like many big bumps on a road - the line goes up very quickly, but it does not go down as much. Some of the words people use to talk about sound waves and shock waves are the same, like amplitude or frequency, but this does not mean that they are the same.