With its many beautiful colour pictures, this book gives fascinating insights into the unusual forms and behaviour of matter under extremely high pressures and temperatures. These extreme states are generated, among other things, by strong shock, detonation and electric explosion waves, dense laser beams, electron and ion beams, hypersonic entry of spacecraft into dense atmospheres of planets and in many other situations characterized by extremely high pressures and temperatures. Written by one of the world's foremost experts on the topic, this book will inform and fascinate all scientists dealing with materials properties and physics and also serve as an excellent introduction to plasma-, shock-wave and high-energy-density physics for students and newcomers seeking an overview. This second edition is thoroughly revised and expanded, in particular with new material on high energy-density physics, nuclear explosions and other nuclear transformation processes.

Vladimir E. Fortov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Introduction.- Matter under Extreme Conditions: Classification of States.- High Energy Densities in Laboratories.- Extreme States in a Nuclear Explosion.- High-Power Lasers in High-Energy Density Physics.- Relativistic Charged Particle Beams.- Technical Applications of the Physics of High Energy Densities.- Nuclear Transformations under Strong Compression.- High Energy Densities in Planets and Stars.- High Energy Densities outside of Compact Astrophysical Objects.