[cosmic_ape]

Not sure about that specific function. But the circle of ideas to which this function belongs can be loosely described as "how do we deal with non-smooth objects"? How do we construct them, measure and use them. Some such objects are sometimes called fractals, this function is a simple example.

There are concrete application examples, but in general one guy that was particularly interested in fractals in the real world was Mandelbrot. He published several influential books on fractals in nature (and in finance). Another famous name is Taleb, although imho he's much more a populariser than a researcher.