If we zoom in on a single electron absorbing the momentum of a single photon, it will accelerate “instantly”. The same goes for e.g. an unstable atomic nucleus that ”splits”.
At macroscopic scales, I’m not aware of exactly instantaneous acceleration, since you would need some time to “sync” the movement of each atom in the object. But some processes will of course look instantaneous at any given time scale.
I imagine if you zoom in far enough on those points you have the acceleration continuously changing as pressure slowly builds in the engines over several microseconds.
That’s the essence of a legitimate question: over small enough time periods (as the bolts explode over a non-zero period of time), is it continuous or discontinuous?
Over a macro scale, it’s discontinuous, of course.
One thing I’ve learned, not from direct experience but from observation. These things are way cheaper than the more ethical and optimistic of us in society think. Your point is totally valid but the number is probably more like $5k-10k.
