The ideal gas law is a familiar equation of state; it allows us to predict the thermal energy (temperature) behavior of a gas or plasma when it is compressed. But what if the gas also has energy in swirling flow, that is, turbulence? Here, I will give a conceptual presentation of the development of "quasi equations of state" to describe the behavior under compression of a gas or plasma that contains both thermal energy and flow. I will then discuss insights from these studies in a few different application areas, which I will introduce. Two such areas are inertial confinement fusion experiments, which seek to create fusion energy through the compression of fusion fuel pellets, and molecular clouds, in which star formation takes place. The insights discussed include a new fast-ignition concept for inertial fusion and a lower bound on the turbulent energy in contracting molecular clouds.
