Solve function equation $$ f ( x y ) = f ( x ) ^ { y ^ \beta } f ( y ) ^ { x ^ \beta } \text , $$ where $ \beta $ is real number, $ f ( x ) $ is continuous single valued function.
Obviously, $ f ( x ) = 1 $ satisfies it, but are there other solutions?
There is a way to answer that question that is due to Enrico Fermi (see E. Fermi, Thermodynamics, Ch.IV). Of course, being him a physicist treating a physical variable like entropy, he made several cavalier assumptions about the $f(x)$ entering into the functional equation as, e.g., that a Taylor expansion exists. If this is the case, being $y$ arbitrary, we will assume $y=1+\epsilon$ and expands on $\epsilon$. You will get the following equality $$ f(x)+\epsilon xf'(x)+O(\epsilon^2)=f(x)f(1)+\epsilon\beta f(1)f(x)\log(f(x))+\epsilon x^\beta f(x)f'(x)+O(\epsilon^2). $$ Then, by equating equal powers of $\epsilon$, it is easy to see that $$ f(1)=1 $$ and $$ xf'(x)=\beta f(x)\log(f(x))+x^\beta f(x)f'(x) $$ that is the differential equation to solve for this problem. But this has just the trivial solution.