Shock wave shock wave, creating a process of destructive interference. The sonic boom associated with the passage of a supersonic aircraft is a type of sound wave produced by constructive interference. Unlike solitons (another kind of nonlinear wave), the energy and speed of a shock wave alone dissipates relatively quickly with distance. When a shock wave passes through matter, energy is preserved but entropy increases. This change in the matter's properties manifests itself as a decrease in the energy which can be extracted as work, and as a drag force on supersonic objects; shock waves are strongly irreversible processes. Shock waves can
Explosive within the substance (usually below 1000 m/s) in contrast to detonation, which occurs at speeds greater than the speed of sound. Deflagration is a characteristic of low explosive material. This term is used to describe an explosive phenomenon whereby the decomposition is propagated by an explosive shock wave traversing the explosive material at speeds greater than the speed of sound within the substance. The shock front is capable of passing through the high explosive material at supersonic speeds, typically thousands of metres per second. In addition to chemical explosives, there are a number of more exotic explosive materials, and exotic