What are the distinctions between Adobe Flash Player & Shockwave Player & Shockwave Flash?

Question

I find references to what seem to be three distinct things:
Adobe Flash Player
Shockwave Player
Shockwave Flash
Treatment of these things is interwoven and confusing:. 
As an example, the Adobe Shockwave Player page at URL:  http://www.adobe.com/products/shockwaveplayer/  provides a link to a page to test whether Shockwave Player is installed.   That test, however, is the test to see whether Adobe Flash Player ins installed. 
On my Mac running OS X 10.6.4 Firefox 8.0.1 has a Plug-In named Shockwave Flash 11.0.1.152. 
Are these things indeed distinct?  Is it likely that both (or all three) are needed on the same computer?  The Adobe web site should clearly define the relationships at a high level of visibility.

Answer 1

Basically, the Flash player is just that: you can watch videos, but you can't interact with them.
To give it its full name, Shockwave For Director is primarily used for things like games, or demos where the user can interact with the animation.
The current version of the Shockwave (For Director) player is 11.6.3.633 while the current Flash player is 11.1.102.55