This book presents, in a concise and comprehensive manner, the essential techniques by which shock wave physicists probe the boundaries of material response to impulsive loads. The author is a well-known figure in shock wave physics, having worked for over forty years with many of the outstanding researchers in the field.The book acquaints readers both with modern instrumentation techniques including interferometers such as the DISAR and the VISAR — and with methods that have been established by previous generations of experimentalists — including acoustic measurement techniques...