Extending Bauer's corollary to fractional derivatives

Abstract

We comment on the method of Dreisigmeyer and Young [D. W. Dreisigmeyer and P.\nM. Young, J. Phys. A \\textbf{36}, 8297, (2003)] to model nonconservative\nsystems with fractional derivatives. It was previously hoped that using\nfractional derivatives in an action would allow us to derive a single retarded\nequation of motion using a variational principle. It is proven that, under\ncertain reasonable assumptions, the method of Dreisigmeyer and Young fails.\n