Letter to the Editor

doi:10.1088/0305-4470/37/11/L01

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Extending Bauer's corollary to fractional derivatives

David W Dreisigmeyer et al 2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 L117-L121 doi: 10.1088/0305-4470/37/11/L01

PDF (74.5 KB) | HTML | References | Articles citing this article

David W Dreisigmeyer¹ and Peter M Young²
¹ Department of Mathematics, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
² Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
E-mail: dreisigm@math.colostate.edu and pmy@engr.colostate.edu

Abstract. We comment on the method of Dreisigmeyer and Young J. Phys. A: Math. Gen.368297 to model nonconservative systems with fractional derivatives. It was previously hoped that using fractional derivatives in an action would allow us to derive a single retarded equation of motion using a variational principle. It is proven that, under certain reasonable assumptions, the method of Dreisigmeyer and Young fails.

PACS numbers: 42.20.−d, 02.30.−f

Print publication: Issue 11 (19 March 2004)
Received 12 December 2003
Published 2 March 2004

Post to CiteUlike |

Post to Connotea |

Post to Bibsonomy

Extending Bauer's corollary to fractional derivatives

Find related articles

Article options

Authors & Referees