The field of shock compression science has a long and rich history involving contributions of mathematicians, physicists and engineers over approximately two hundred years. The middle of the nineteenth century was an especially ac tive period with the contributions of Riemann, Rankine and Hugoniot, among others. The middle of the twentieth century saw another increase in activity re lated to shock compression of condensed matter as a result of military applica tions. It was also recognized that shock compression provided a means of sub jecting solids and liquids to extreme states of...