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Fractional Calculus by Nichele Raines

Wednesday, February 20, 2019 12 p.m. Free
Mathematics Seminar

In 1695, Gottfried Leibniz discussed the topic of fractional calculus in a letter to the well-known L’Hopital. Over the last few centuries, the applications of fractional calculus tapered off, but in the late 1900’s the subject reemerged. Although it is not known what a fractional derivative or integral represent, it is known that fractional differentiation can be computed. An example of a fractional derivative is the one-half derivative of a function ???). The most understandable methods to compute a fractional differentiation problem are the Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative, the Caputo fractional derivative, and the Laplace transform. This presentation will be better understood if the course Calculus 3 has been taken.