[en] We review our theoretical and numerical results on the initiation of turbulence by shocks. Problems which have been addressed include turbulent cooling of laser and electric discharge channels in a gas, shock-flame interactions, and shock propagation through inhomogeneous fluids. The central issue is the identification of a nonlinear mechanism underlying the production of turbulence in an inviscid medium by flows that are initially irrotational with local density and pressure gradients aligned. The basis for our theory is the observation that vorticity is generated when the local pressure and density distributions are misaligned. The theory is nonlinear and supersedes linear treatments of shock-flame and shock-bubble interactions. In the case of hot, gaseous channels, no appropriate theory had existed beforehand. As an example, we present numerical simulations and analytic models which have given useful descriptions of evolving, hot, gaseous channels. This work has led to a successful method of suppressing turbulence in channels produced by lasers