Elessar wrote:Aw thanks ladies
I'm glad you liked Skin Deep... that took an incredibly long time to write. I started it and then got to a point where I didn't know where it was going, it was originally going to be like a post-Dawn ficlet and it just grew a pair of legs.
The math/science in that is sort of funny, I just re-read it myself. I was in a graduate physics class in undergrad at the time in nonlinear dynamics, fractals and chaos -- that's where I pulled all this chaos theory terminology from (Feigenbaum numbers, Lyapunov exponents, phase space, etc). I kind of invented the term "hyperchaotic" but it sounded cool!
Chaos theory's actually really fascinating, mathematically, not to mention a pain in the ass. I've described it as a Newtonian version of Uncertainty Principle. Basically, some nonlinear systems are so dependent upon their initial conditions that the mathematically computed "error" in the function is actually greater than the separation between initial parameters that leads to some separation of final parameters. Then there's such a thing as a "psuedoperiodic" system that's technically periodic (has periodic behavior like a sinusoid or cosine) but its period is infinity.... in other words it's like a repeating fraction... that doesn't repeat until the infinity'th digit (in other words it doesn't actually repeat).
Neat stuff. Especially because up until the 1970's, there were something like 4 or 5 known physical constants in the universe (the big constants like mu and epsilon and plank, not like G or pi) and in chaos theory, they discovered TWO MORE in the span of 10 years.
But back on topic -- I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of warp mechanics requires computational methods to really DO... sort of like CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics). A lot of useful fluids work can't be done analytically (in mathematical generalities, with general solutions that work for all cases like y + z = 4 gives you z = 4-y for all z and y in the real numbers), can only be done numerically under very strict initial conditions and boundary conditions that setup convenient symmetries so that the Navier-Stokes equations become solvable. That would probably be true of a higher level field like warp drive. It's concievable, however, that if such a field as 'warp physics' existed, given its reliance on higher dimensional physics, it'd include some language of differential geometry (which IS very analytical, thankfully) but I'm sure there'd be computational elements to it.
In other words, with computational fields like CFD you have to just learn algorithms but really all you do is stick them into a computer and it does all the heavy lifting. As a mathematician you SHOULD understand what they're doing, but you wouldn't have to for it to work. That still wouldn't allow Trip to do his job without at least a PhD in something like Physics or Aeronautical Engineering with a Masters level education in math & physics.
sorry! if it's any consolation my viscous flow book just melted my cerebral cortex, it's absolutely nonsense to me 
S'ok you're the Boss you're allowed to make no sense. 
But really you don't want to melt your Cerebral Cortex. Take it from someone with Cerebral Palsy not fun at all dude.
Seriously this is incredible. But there is an unpleasent side effect to this thread. I am now convinced that I could never write a good fic about Trip doing his actual job... 
Where's the darn <pouty smiley>
Ask Transwarp on how a real afterburner works, he sure knows some techno terms to be used...