Von Neumann's Paradox - Revisited.

For about 50 years the complete failure of von Neumann's theory to describe correctly pseudo-steady Mach reflection of weak shock waves from inclined walls has puzzled researchers in this field (von Neu- mann Paradox paradox). Based on former analytical investigations, where a transonic approach of the governing equation was applied 6, and by evaluation of experimental data from the literature it is conjuctured that the von Neumann theory does not only fail for weak shocks but also does not yield correct data results for strong waves as long as no double Mach reflection occurs. In order to support the conjecture, experiments were performed with wave Mach numbers ranging up to Ma &#61 1.48. Results are presented and compared with the theory