Today, I encountered the problem where I was asked to find the velocity and acceleration from displacement-time graph but the displacement-time graph was discontinuous. So I am unable to find the velocity where it was discontinuous.
I know from my Calculus class that we cannot find the derivative when function is discontinuous at some point.
So I think it's not possible to find the velocity and acceleration at that point.
So what is the physical significance of that?
Best Answer
In the real world, a displacement time graph can never be discontinuous. The only not-so-physical meaning that it has is that the body teleported from one place to another such that its displacement changed instantaneously/discontinuously. And as you can see, it's impossible to define the velocity of this teleportation.