Intuition behind gradient VS curvature

Question

In Newton's method, one computes the gradient of a cost function, (the 'slope') as well as its hessian matrix, (ie, second derivative of the cost function, or 'curvature'). I understand the intuition, that the less 'curved' the cost landscape is at some specific weight, the bigger the step we want to take on the landscape terrain. (This is why it is somewhat superior to simply gradient ascent/descent).

Here is the equation:

$$ \mathbf {w_{n+1} = w_n - \alpha\frac{\delta J(w)}{\delta w}\begin{bmatrix}\frac{\delta^2J(w)}{\delta w^2}\end{bmatrix}^{-1}} $$

What I am having a hard time visualizing, is what is the intuition behind 'curvature'? I get that is the 'curviness of a function', but isnt that the slope? Obviously it is not, that is what the gradient measures, so what is the intuition behind curvature?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Intuitively, curvature is how fast the slope is changing: a greater rate of change of the slope means it is more curved.

So it is related to the derivative of the slope, i.e. the derivative of the derivative or the second derivative.