In a world without papers..

Only computers..
Where quantization, Discrete Geometry
and efficient calculations have a decisive
role..
How would they define the Calculus from
the first place?
 The main-stream Calculus suggests to use the information regarding the
tangent's slope to answer the question: "Is the function increasing in an
interval".

However, in the era of computers, perhaps we can be satisfied with little? That
is to say, query exactly the information we're interested in?
 The operator which will be presented in the next slide was hidden in the
algorithm best known as "Integral Image", or "Summed area tables", found in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summed_area_table.

The origin of this brilliant algorithm is a simpler definition of the Calculus.

Michael Jones and Paul Viola, who introduced

the "Integral Image" algorithm to the vision
community in 2001.
"Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for nature is
pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.”

-- Sir Isaac Newton.

The idea of the "Detachment" is very simple. Let us observe the term:

f ( x + h) − f ( x).

It is clear that for any continuous function, it holds that:

lim  f ( x + h ) − f ( x ) = 0 .
h →0

The derivative, however, manages to supply interesting information by comparing dy to dx ,

via a fraction. The detachment uses less information, and quantizes dy , via the function sgn ( ⋅) ..
 Detachment in the Integral Image Algorithm

( )
Suppose we have a curve γ ( t ) = x ( t ) , y ( t ) . Then the sign of the coefficient of the

antiderivative, F , in the linear combination, is determined according to the vector (x ,x , y , y )

;
+
;
−
;
+
; t
−

in the specific corner, as depicted in the above diagram.

 Detachment Vs. Derivative

The derivative has an advantage over the detachment: it is a linear operator. However, in the era of
computers, efficiency is not less important. The detachment asks the question: "Function, are you
increasing, decreasing or constant?", while the derivative uses the information about the tangent to answer
that question. Hence the detachment is more computationally efficient in determining the monotonic
behavior of a function.
A suggestion to the Calculus structure
Do you think that the detachment is trivial? That it's just a simple trick in Calculus? Maybe it's true, but in the following
slides I will try to tell you about its research potential.

By the way, note that the detachment combines two kinds of mathematics: continuous math (Calculus) and discrete
math (the sgn (⋅) operator). Isn't it beautiful?
 Metric and Topological Spaces, Number Theory and other fields of Classical Analysis

Given a function, f : ( X , d X ) → (Y , dY ) , where X , Y are metric spaces and d X , dY are the induced measures
respectively, one usually cannot talk about the derivative, since the term:

dY ( f ( x ) , f ( x0 ) )
lim
x → x0 d X ( x, x0 )

dY ( ⋅)
is not always defined (we cannot know for sure that the fraction is well defined). However, the term:
d X ( ⋅)

Q  dY ( f ( x ) , f ( x0 ) )  ,

where Q is a quantization function (as is the sgn ( ⋅ ) function in the definition of the detachment), is well defined,
and suggests a classification of a discontinuity in a point. Theorems involving this operator are now available.
 Elementary Calculus

Further exploring the following terms: “Series Continuousness”, the suggested definition of the limit, extensions to
the definition of the detachment to other quantizations, and the establishment of further theorems that rely on the
detachment.

In the following two slides there is an example: A definition of Tendency, followed by an

analogous version to Lagrange's theorem, that relies on the definition of the
detachment.
Definition of Tendency
Let f : [ a , b] → ℝ. Suppose that f is continuous in [ a, b] and differentiable in ( a , b ) .
Then there exists a point a < c < b such that:
f (b) − f (a )
f ' (c) = .
b−a

Joseph Louis Lagrange

1736-1813

Let f : [ a , b] → ℝ. Suppose that f is continuous in [ a, b] and tendable (detachable

from left and from right) in ( a , b ) . Suppose also that f ( a ) ≠ f ( b ) . Then for any
value v ∈ ( f ( a ) , f ( b ) ) there exists a point, cv ∈ ( a, b ) such that f ( cv ) = v , and:

τ f ( cv ) = sgn  f ( b ) − f ( a )  .
 Advanced Calculus and Discrete Geometry

Further exploring theorems that rely on the detachment. Note that the analogous theorem to Green's theorem and
the definition of the Slanted Line Integral form a different approach to Advanced Calculus, since it relies on discrete
division of the domain bounded by a curve, rather than summing up the function's values on the curve as suggested
by the familiar Line Integral.
 Computer Applications

Computer applications, such as computer vision and image processing. For example, given an image which has been
interpolated into a pseudo-continuous domain, one can use an extension of the detachment,

lim Q  f ( x + h ) − f ( x ) ,
h →0

where Q is a quantization function, to discover edges in the image, rather than use the gradient as in the current
approach. This can spare computation time, due to two main reasons:

1. The detachment spares the division operator that appears in the definition of the derivative.
2. There are a finite number of values in the result of the limit, as opposed to the (theoretically)
infinitely many values possible for the derivative.
 Algebra

The unusual arithmetic attributes that the detachment depicts, whose nature is multiplicative, can be further
explored to establish new types of vector fields.
 Numerical Analysis

Finding Optimizations to the detachment.

 Real Functions

Is it true that a function is detachable almost everywhere if and only if it is differentiable almost everywhere?

I couldn't prove or disprove it. This conjecture is now open for further investigation, along with other Measure
Theory related questions regarding the detachment.
Please contact me if you wish to co-operate in research.
With respect and love,
Amir: amir.f22@gmail.com