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Re: non-differentiable physics



OK, I'll take a bite:

Here is a WAG (wild...guess)

Does it have something to do with critical phenomena in phase transitions?

And is this related to your "to first order everything is linear" question,
to which nobody responded as far as I can recall?

Joel R.

-----Original Message-----
From: John S. Denker [mailto:jsd@MONMOUTH.COM]
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 4:14 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: non-differentiable physics


On 04/28/2003 04:52 PM, David Bowman wrote:

Just because a function is continuous
is no reason to presume it must be differentiable.
... and gave a mathematical example.


For bonus points, can anybody give an example
from _physics_ ... some physical quantity that
can be expressed as a function of some other
physical quantity, yet is not differentiable
at some point.

I've asked versions of this question before,
but heretofore nobody has taken the bait. So
here's a huuuuge hint: if you had figured this
out in the 1960s you could have gotten (later)
an all-expense-paid trip to Stockholm.