Will a shock wave, or wave in general, travel at a higher velocity through solids, liquids, or gases?

And why?

Gasses.

It will travel farther as well.

Then why do sound waves travel faster and further underwater?

actually no its solids

you can hear a train by putting your ear on the tracks before you can hear it through the air

as for why the short answer is resonance

the closer atoms are together the faster the wave will transfer between them. i think thats right.

A conundrum!

My understanding is that the energy will persist when it's not staunched so rapidly by tightly packed molecules.

Besides...

Yell under water and calculate how far it travels as opposed to yelling above water.

Do the same by yelling into a wall.

The results lean towards gasses.

im sure the frequency of the wave would matter too.

The aforementioned examples are awkward.

The sound energy from the train is being projected into the ground due to it's weight.

I could see why he would think that way, but if you were to harness that sound energy and project it outwards through the surrounding gasses, you would find startlingly different results.

if you actually did that you would see that the sound traveled faster and farther in water and the wall..

"Sound travels faster in liquids and non-porous solids than it does in air. It travels about 4.3 times faster in water (1,484 m/s), and nearly 15 times as fast in iron (5,120 m/s), than in air at 20 degrees Celsius"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound