StevenA
4th March 2008 - 10:37 PM
I've posted some comments regarding this before and though there aren't a lot of immediate applications, there are still some possibilities and interesting ways that the concepts could be applied to potentially link other areas of mathematics together.
Here are just a couple thoughts regarding possible uses and an insight into how it could be viewed as a link between some fields in mathematics:
1) A potential application that could be useful would be with respect to linear systems. A linear filter can construct various slopes of sensitivities between frequencies that approach limits that are integer powers of the ratio of two frequencies.
For example, a simple lowpass filter, could be used to model motion in a mechanical system or applied to audio processing for effects, though the natural 'fall off' for a single lowpass filter is ~6dB per octave (basically, doubling the frequency reduces the amplitude to 1/2 it's initial amplitude). Multiple such filters can be staged or combined to create quite a variety of characteristics in the transition region, but these all ultimately approach a decay that's simply an integer power of a single stage (so a "two-pole" filter will approach ~12dB per octave drop, or a 1/4th attentuation of the amplitude when the frequency is doubled).
This fall off or gain is also seen when a sine is integrated and the derivative of a sine, where f is proportional to the frequency is:
sin'(f*t)=f*cos(f*t)
So the amplitude increases proportional to the frequency (a single pole "highpass" filter), but replacing this with a process generating an arbitrary fractional dB/octave filter structure would allow for some quite novel filter structures to be created (though this may be possible to do with infinite impulse response filters, and it may only be approximateable within a limited frequency range with finite impulse response techniques or fourier transforms).
Anyway, applying fractional derivatives to a signal allows for intermediate forms of filters to be constructed and this could be used to generate novel audio and graphic algorithms.
2) In physics, a wave can be seen as a rotation in phase of some contrast for a physical measurement occuring at a single location in space. Each measurement is made as a contrast between two states/values, this is similar to recursive differentiation over time as each measurement becomes the new reality that is again resampled and effectively differentiated to become the next moment etc. This creates an evolving wavefront over time similar to this:
1 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 -1 0 0 0 0 0
1 -2 1 0 0 0 0
1 -3 3 -1 0 0 0
1 -4 6 -4 1 0 0
...
This approaches a gaussian function ("bell curve"/normal distribution
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/NormalDistribution.html) which propogates in one direction, but recognize that if we use a fractional derivative we can create a virtual "wavepacket" that can proprogate in either direction in time and at fractional velocities. Notice also that this object grows in width in one direction and shrinks in the other, hence can be seen to arise from a particle and become a wave with a wavefunction that matches a gaussian probability distribution.
Sidenote: A normal distribution or gaussian function is quite interesting in that it arises very naturally and includes the irrational sqrt(pi), (notice that a 2-D diffusion makes this area a dependent upon pi) and you have an exponential (which is likely associated with strong binding forces in physics) and a 1/d^2 term which could be seen quite similar to a diffusion that gives 1/d^2 fallout in forces. This form also provides a close link between sinusoidal waves (e^it) and statistical diffusion (e^(-t^2)), also notice that a gaussian retains a gaussian form when converted between time and frequency domain (again a good wave/particle duality). If we square the oscillatory amplitude at each point, we again arrive at a gaussian form and if we then once again recursively differentiate this, we see it shift, expand and becomes an oscillatory gaussian wavepacket that frequency shifts toward higher/bluer frequencies! Notice also that detailed measurements of mass reveal a gaussian probability function. (Also notice that the original recursive differentiation gives us Pascal's Triangle, which once again correlates to many atomic properties
http://milan.milanovic.org/math/english/atom/electron.html)

From this perspective, a fractional derivative would allow for something similar to a slower than "lightspeed" motion within this system to occur, so motions resembling masses in this system should arise from such fractional differential computations (which can result in quite complex phenomenon because these can be effectively polynomial roots, this leads to complex structures in number theory).
3) In order to see a link here to other areas of mathematics, notice this:
sin'(f*t)=f*cos(f*t)
sin'(f*t)=f*sin(f*t+pi/2)
A fractional derivative could be generalized to (where d is the fractional derivative):
sin'(d)(f*t)=(f^d)*sin(f*t+d*pi/2)
Notice that every derivative rotates the signal 90 degs and amplifies the signal by a power curve. Integration would then become values of d<0.
Hence we can combine a fourier transform along with a scaling and rotation of the measured amplitudes and then apply an inverse fourier transform to emulate fractional derivatives (notice this could also be done using a finite sample of a function to approximate a fractional derivative that might not be otherwise computable, so for example, there are some functions that aren't particularly amenable to being integrated or differentiated, and this would appear aggrevated further for fractional derivatives, but these can still be approximated to some required finite accuracy if points of these functions can be computed as we can then apply a fourier transform and perform arbitrary filtering equivalent to transformations in calculus upon them).
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After all is said and done, what would allow fractional calculus to be used much more easily and potentially correlate to real physical processes would be to find a mechanism that allows a small finite system to actually computed such a transformation precisely. Off hand, there don't appear to be any classical physical systems capable of performing a fractional derivative or integral etc., but I might be missing something here and also quantum mechanics may allow for such a system to be statistically emulated (I'm just tossing out some ideas).