• antrosapien@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    7 days ago

    I can’t even comprehend what something beyond jerk means in reality or how to even produce it by physical means

    • Deconceptualist@leminal.space
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      7 days ago

      Well these are higher order derivatives, so they do have physical meaning but the latter ones are increasingly abstract and subtle from our normal earthly perspective.

      If you think of a stable and perfectly circular orbit, that’s a steady and constant acceleration. Then if you thrust to make it elliptical, you’re changing the acceleration which can be measured as jerk. But then if that thrust itself is variable, you can measure its changes as snap. And then of course the rate of how much you change that is crackle, and so on.

      • Danquebec@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        6 days ago

        If I was working with those concepts, I’d just start using numbers.

        Like, acceleration is v2, jerk is v3, and so on.

        • Deconceptualist@leminal.space
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          6 days ago

          These are n th order mathematical derivatives so I’m pretty sure physicists do something very similar to that whenever n matters.