But why stop at acceleration?
The rate of change of 'distance' is 'velocity'.
The rate of change of 'velocity' is 'acceleration'.
But what do you call the rate of change of acceleration, or the rate of change of the rate of change of acceleration or.... you get the point.
Believe it or not.. there actually are terms for these but apparently they're not all that widely accepted. Once again to the rescue wikipedia-
The rate of change of 'acceleration' is 'jerk' ...or possibly 'jolt' or 'surge' or 'lurch'
The rate of change of 'jerk' is 'snap'.. or possibly 'jounce'.
The rate of change of 'snap' is 'crackle'
The rate of change of 'crackle' is 'pop'
And since nobody else has claimed it i now official stake my claim to name the next kinematic derivative thus:
The rate of change of 'pop' is 'whoa!'
"I'm sorry officer- was it my acceleration, my jerk or my snap, crackle, pop or whoa!?"
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Reminds me of the Italo Calvino story of the car chase. Traffic stalls, both cars unmoving. A chase without movement seems similar to a speeding ticket without speeding.
ReplyDeleteLD
yeah - love "Time and the Hunter" and "Cosmicomics" .. thin books but difficult and fascinating stories... i always feel creeped out after reading them... like Paul Auster or Haruki Murakami novels.
ReplyDeletei'm a big Calvino fan - IOAWNAT obviously with it's nested self-referrential stories, but i also loved "The Cloven Viscount" (part of a trilogy of novellae), and his massive collection of Italian folktales... what else? "Adam one Afternoon"- short stories- tht was great too esp the one about the ants...'formica?'
i'm getting nostalgic- gotta find those in one of my book boxes!