RWG%MIT-MC@sri-unix.UUCP (01/26/84)
From: Bill Gosper <RWG @ MIT-MC> Did you mean finesse instead of finess? Objectation instead of oblectation? Anyway, here are three more from hearsay: Crackle: see Snap. Pop: see Snap. Snap, Crackle, and Pop: the fourth, fifth, and sixth time derivatives of position..
rjnoe@ihlts.UUCP (Roger Noe @ N41:48:31, W88:07:13) (01/30/84)
>Snap, Crackle, and Pop: the fourth, fifth, and sixth time derivatives of >position.. Just to confirm something I was told a long time ago: Is the third time derivative of displacement actually called JERK? Roger Noe ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe
eugene@statvax.UUCP (Eugene miya) (02/03/84)
A number of us who deal with NASA HQ got lots of laughs off the Flinn's first list, but the consensus was that much of the terminology is a year old. Because we (and others) can use buzz phrases in string manipulation languages (like MLISP), I am collecting at NASA Ames, and other NASA centers some of the current `jargon.' If you have dealings with NASA HQ, please feel free to mail to me, and it will post the total to net.space to add to Flinn's list. Give me about one month. --eugene miya NASA Ames Res. Ctr.
kcarroll@utzoo.UUCP (Kieran A. Carroll) (02/06/84)
* The term we were taught in undergraduate engineering, describing the third time derivative of displacement, is in fact "jerk". A colleague of mine informs me that this is widely accepted, and that there even exist "jerk-meters", to measure this quantity. Yesterday, while reading through some of my back-issues of Analog, I cmae across an article by Harry Stine describing work done by a Dr. (William?) Davis, on a generalization of classical mechanics. This work was also described in a 1962 article by the late Dr. Davis, called "The Fourth Law of Motion", if I recall correctly. In this work, Davis postulated that due to reasons of simultaneity, a force exists in systems that is proportional to jerk, or "surge", as he referred to it. Apparently, several properly- trained scientists and engineers audited and contributed to this work over a period of several years, and came to various interesting conclusions; using this postulate, several results from reativity and quantum mechanics were apparently generated, indepently of either of those theoretical structures. Davis' theory was developed while he and Stine were trying to investigate the infamous Dean Drive. While they were unable to reach any definite conclusions concerning Dean's machine (dsince he wouldn't let outsiders play much with it, unless they promised to give him a million dollars, which nobody wanted to do), they did carry on experimental research into oscillating systems, some of the results of which tend to verify Davis' postulate. Interesting stuff. I'm taking my master's in spacecraft dynamics, and know just enough to be able to tell that the people involved with this work weren't technical illiterates. The ultimate promise of the theory is the mythical "reactionless" space drive, so if there's anything in it, it'll be valuable. Unfortunately most of the people involved are dead now, and so unless somebody follows up on their work, it'll likely be forgotten. Ah mal. If anybody's interested, I'll post the issues in which these articles appeared. -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll
flinn@seismo.UUCP (E. A. Flinn) (02/07/84)
Not only are most of the terms in the NASA buzzword collection a year old, the majority of them are at least eight years old - I started the collection when I first went to NASA in 1975.