Piecewise functions: Got an example of a real world piecewise function? Looking for something beyond a contrived textbook problem concerning jelly beans or equations that do not represent anything concrete. Not just a piecewise function for its own sake.  Anyone?

As Wim mentions in the comments, piecewise polynomials are used a fair bit in applications. In designing profiles and shapes for cars, airplanes, and other such devices, one usually uses pieces of Bézier or B-spline curves (or surfaces) during the modeling process, for subsequent machining. In fact, the continuity/smoothness conditions for such curves (usually continuity up to the second derivative) are important here, since during machining, an abrupt change in the curvature can cause the material for the modeling, the mill, or both, to crack (remembering that velocity and acceleration are derivatives of position with respect to time might help to understand why you want smooth curves during machining).
