Snap, Crackle, & Pop

A little background:

If you're trying to describe the motion of something, the first thing you need is its position. If you measure the rate of change of its position, that's called velocity. The rate of change of velocity is acceleration.

I'd always wondered what the rate of change of acceleration was, until one day in college one of my professors mentioned in passing that this quantity does in fact have a name; the rate of change of acceleration is called "jerk."

So, naturally, I had to start wondering what the rate of change of jerk is. But I wonder no more! Thanks to this post in Cosmic Variance, I now know that the rate of change of jerk is snap.

But wait! There's more! The rate of change (derivative) of snap is crackle, and the derivative of crackle is pop.

Snap, crackle, pop. Never let it be said that scientists have no sense of humor.