Talk:Jerk

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http://www.wordorigins.org/wordorj.htm states:

Do you want to know who a jerk is?! My english teacher!!!!!! I mean seriously, he LOVES to pick om me and my friends. GRRRR!!!!!! I HATE HIM!!!!! Jerk is an old word, dating to the sixteenth century. The word echoes the sound made by a short, sharp movement. The word is unremarkable, except that it has several modern, slang usages that are interesting.

A soda jerk is someone who makes a living by jerking, or pulling, sodas at a lunch counter, the name coming from the jerking motion required to open a tap.

To jerk off is to masturbate, again coming from the motion required for men to engage in this activity. Founded by a Mr. Jerk Gosling in 1623.

A jerkwater train was originally a small locomotive that serviced branch lines. Its small boiler requiring frequent filling by train crews which would have to dismount, form a bucket brigade, and jerk water from a river to feed the steam engine. The term dates to the 1870s and is American in origin. The term jerkwater town eventually came to mean any rustic or backwards town, along a train line or not.

Finally, the most common usage of jerk, meaning a fool or inept person, probably derives from jerkwater. A jerk being a resident of a jerkwater town. This usage dates to the 1930s.

The term jerky, meaning dried and preserved meat has a different origin. That is a corruption of the Peruvian Spanish charque, meaning (what else?) dried and preserved meat.

I didn't have time to modify the article. I would like to point out that while "jerk" often implies stupidity or incompetence, that is usually not the most common usage. The most common one, as I've heard, refers to someone who frequently behaves in a manner inconsiderate of other people (on a local scale, as in "That jerk cut me off," or on a global scale, as in "Chicks dig jerks").

23:22pm EST 2004 March 21

Would you please add references that give more information about the Jerk.

I added the English-language slang meaning of Jerk. If this qualifies as a dicdef and therefore does not belong, remove it.

It does and I did.—Herbee 06:40, 2004 Mar 17 (UTC)

I believe I'm correct in saying that the origin of the term is unclear but may have come from one of those two derivations. If I am not, and there is someone who knows its correct origin, please post it. Mike Church 10:02, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This seems to be legitimate - I was soo ready to delete it :). [1]

Yes in engineering school we were taught that jerk was the derivative of acceleration, an apropos name. However, c.f. the other physics use of jerk Poppafuze 05:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Fourth derivative

There are some terms for the fourth derivative here, but the article is missing the only one that I've heard before, "twitch". Has anyone else ever heard this term in reference to the fourth derivative of displacement? --Monguin61 05:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Humph ! Why is this page locked ? Please add a link to the general page for this kind of word ! Derivatives of position Should it be in the Phsics Project ? That page even has its Talk page locked !

--195.137.93.171 13:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infinite jerk

Isn't it impossible to accelerate instantaneously? Motion is an infinitely differentiable entity; there is no such thing as an infinite jerk, just a very very high jerk.

Yes, that's true. Infinite jerk over an instant of time is an idealization, just like infinite force over an instant of time is sometimes used to characterize an elastic collision between two objects. PAR 19:24, 12 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] tongue in cheek

"with some nonzero positive value for tongue-in-cheek" - very clever, I rate that! --LeakeyJee 07:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Original research

Where did all this relativistic, mass-changing-with-velocity, yank stuff come from? 16:31, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Mass changing with velocity is a part of relativity; see Mass in special relativity. As for yank, just as "force = mass * accel", "yank = mass * jerk". I'm not sure what original research you are alleging? - grubber 19:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I am pointing out that there is no source for the information. I am familiar with special relativity. Why should I believe that special relativity is at all relevant to the applications of jerk? Melchoir 19:44, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
      • I think you make a good point lol. - grubber 01:45, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Now jerk is 3rd deriv., which reminds me...people debate/discuss about whether Nature

has a preference for linearity--great. But how about more debate/exploration on Nature's "preference", if the preference exists, for second order differential equations? One way to explore it would be to check if there is something mathematically significant that happens or doesn't happen with linear third order partial differential equations. Does all hell break loose in the solutions or what? This is like asking why we have 3 space dimensions instead of 38 or 190 spatial dimensions.Rich 00:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)