Coronavirus curve graphs suck for a myriad of reasons, but one is that I have to refresh myself on calculus every time I see them for them to make any sense, and also, I'm pretty sure more than 50% of people don't actually know what they're depicting for that reason
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Replying to @BootlegGirl
Sadly this probably can’t be avoided. The simpler graphs that lay people find easier to understand unfortunately don’t really show any useful information in this case.
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Replying to @bazzalisk
I'm just trying to remember what intro calculus would call "the curve" as we're looking at it? Like, it's the first derivative of the actual function of infections or deaths, right? Also, what would you call the derivative of the curve? There was a name but it's been so long
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Replying to @BootlegGirl
Essentially the first derivative of a function is how that function changes over the variable (usually time), ie. the “gradient” of the graph. The first derivative of the first derivative is the second derivative, and so on ...
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Replying to @bazzalisk @BootlegGirl
So for movement (which is what a lot of people are more familiar with) then the function is distance, the first derivative is speed, the second is acceleration, and the third is called jerk (ie. the rate of change of acceleration over time)
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Replying to @bazzalisk
yeah, I just thought there was a general name for the level of derivative regardless of what it was measuring
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Replying to @BootlegGirl @bazzalisk
like, if your teacher gave you a test and wanted the second derivative they'd be like "what is the [thing] of f=sin(cos(f*u*c*k*s*q*u*I*d*s)"
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Replying to @BootlegGirl @bazzalisk
I'm pretty sure there's no generic terms other than "first derivative", "second derivative", etc, although you could use the terms from physics (velocity, acceleration, jerk) as a metaphor
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I just looked it up and if you're looking at a graph, the term for the first derivative at a given point is the "slope", the term for the second derivative is the "curvature" and the third derivative is the "aberrancy"
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I.e. if the third derivative isn't zero the curve won't be perfectly symmetrical, just like having a second derivative means having a curve and not a straight line
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Replying to @arthur_affect @bazzalisk
Yeah, that's what I was remembering. Thanks!
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