Difference between shock wave and shock ?

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SUMMARY

A shock wave is defined as a propagating disturbance in a medium, typically resulting from events like explosions or non-equilibrium processes. In contrast, a shock refers to a contact discontinuity in pressure, density, and often temperature within a material. While both terms are related, a shock wave specifically denotes the movement of this discontinuity through a medium. Standing shocks exist as stationary phenomena but are not typically classified as shock waves due to the lack of propagation.

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  • Knowledge of wave propagation mechanics
  • Basic grasp of material properties and states
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  • Study thermodynamic properties related to pressure and density discontinuities
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sam_021
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So I know what a shock wave is but what's a shock ?
is it just the front of the shock wave ?
 
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A shock wave is also known as the sound frequency. Shock would be classified as the electromagnetic radiation frequency.
 
onlinementor said:
A shock wave is also known as the sound frequency. Shock would be classified as the electromagnetic radiation frequency.
You might be confused about your terminology onlinementor; your response isn't correct, and seems to be quite unrelated as-well.

sam_021 said:
So I know what a shock wave is but what's a shock ?
is it just the front of the shock wave ?

These are (obviously) very related terms. In general, a 'shock' is a contact discontinuity in pressure and/or density of a material. There is often (if not always) a similar discontinuity in temperature, specific energy, entropy etc.
A 'shock wave' is a 'shock' which is propagating along/through the medium---e.g. from an explosion, or non-equilibrium accretion process.

There can be 'standing shocks' in which the shock is stationary; generally this would not be referred to as a shock 'wave' (but the terminology is somewhat loose).
 

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