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Beyond velocity and acceleration: jerk, snap and higher derivatives (2016)

(iopscience.iop.org)
181 points EndXA | 1 comments | 19 Jun 24 10:16 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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marginalia_nu ◴[19 Jun 24 11:14 UTC] No.40727129[source]▶
Do these higher order derivatives say anything meaningful?

I always got the sense from physics that outside of purely mathematical constructions such as Taylor series, higher order time derivatives aren't providing much interesting information. Though I'm not sure whether this is the inherent laziness of physicist math[1] or a property of the forces in nature.

[1] since e^x = 1 + x is generally true, why'd you even need a second order derivative

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1. bux93 ◴[19 Jun 24 11:33 UTC] No.40727251[source]▶
If you're driving along and want to stop for the traffic lights, you start decelerating. The car in front of you slams the brakes and leaves less space then you anticipated. You now need to decelerate faster. That's negative jerk. If you apply the change in deceleration instantaneously, you will also experience jerkiness in your braking (= way to remember what this derivative is called).