In 1942 Guderley investigated the behaviour of the typical parameters near the axis when he was studying the focusing of cylindrical shock waves by solving the partial differential equations using the similarity method. He pre- dicted an infinitely large pressure and temperature at the axis of convergence. Since then many theoretical and experimental studies have been performed on shock focusing as an energy source for the generation of very high pressures and temperatures. Many experimental investigations confirmed the idea of Guderley that at the centre of convergence extremely high...