system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How exactly does a shock wave from an explosion kills you (assuming that you don't die due to heat and objects flying around)?
gpt
A shock wave is a region where the pressure changes instantaneously on one side to the other. The region where the jump in pressure occurs is called the shock front.

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A shock wave that's large enough to kill you has to be quite powerful, with a significant pressure change across the shock front. The moment the shock front passes through you, half of your body is at one pressure, while the other half is at a much higher pressure. You can imagine what this means without the shock wave: what would happen to your body if one half of it was being squeezed really hard and the other wasn't?

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A large enough pressure differential of this fashion can rupture organs and otherwise damage your body structures, resulting in death.