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From: kcarroll@utzoo.UUCP (Kieran A. Carroll)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: NASA lexicon
Message-ID: <3519@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-Feb-84 15:40:19 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.3519
Posted: Mon Feb  6 15:40:19 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 6-Feb-84 15:40:19 EST
References: <15994@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <334@ihlts.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 38

*

   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