The application of the theory of scale relativity to microphysics aims at
recovering quantum mechanics as a new non-classical mechanics on a
non-derivable space-time. This program was already achieved as regards
the Schrodinger and Klein Gordon equations, which have been derived in
terms of geodesic equations in this framework: namely, they have been
written according to a generalized equivalence/strong covariance principle
in the form of free motion equations D²x/ds²=0, where D/ds are covariant
derivatives built from the description of the fractal/non-derivable geometry.
Following the same line of thought and using the mathematical tool of
Hamilton's bi-quaternions, we propose here a derivation of the Dirac
equation also from a geodesic equation (while it is still merely postulated
in standard quantum physics). The complex nature of the wave function in the
Schrodinger and Klein-Gordon equations was deduced from the necessity
to introduce, because of the non-derivability, a discrete symmetry breaking
on the proper time differential element. By extension, the bi-quaternionic
nature of the Dirac bi-spinors arises here from further discrete symmetry
breakings on the space-time variables, which also proceed from non-derivability.