There have been numerous independent suggestions to use high speed shocks to heat deuterium gas to thermonuclear temperature (E. Teller, R.R. Wilson, H. Grad, W. Marshall)², and extensive experimental work in this field is being carried on by, e.g., Kolb³, and S. Janes⁴. Our own work in this field has been directed towards a fundamental understanding of the strong shock process in the limit of no particle collision, to find out if within this limit the ion heating following the passage of the shock is large enough to give rise to a thermonuclear reaction.