Download citation the gas dynamics of explosions explosions and the non steady shock propagation associated with them continue to interest researchers working in different fields of physics . This chapter provides a brief review of unsteady gas dynamics and properties of shock and detonation waves the medium of propagation of shocks and detonations is considered to be a perfect gas the thermodynamics of perfect gases are first reviewed the conservation equations in various variables ie p u c etc and in different coordinates systems for example eulerian . Figure 2 chandrasekhar around the time he was engaged in his fluid dynamics work photo printed with permission from the special collections research center university of chicago library figure 3 chandras first letter to heisenberg announcing the analytical solution to the latters equation. The gas dynamics of explosions is a subject that continues to interest researchers from many fields of physics and engineering lees book describes the various analytical methods developed to determine non steady shock propagation associated with explosions in a style accessible to graduate students and researchers in the subject