Everything is math, and everything is made of math, and if you can manipulate the numbers, you can change the world. Literally change the world. You need to know the right equations, or you need the raw power to punch your way to the correct answer without taking the steps in the middle. But if you can accomplish one of those two things, there's nothing you can't do...
The equations we have, the ones we've developed, require a Queen to resolve them. Once she finishes her final morph and enters her fourth instar, she can do the math. She can find the right answers. And she can rip a hole in the fabric between dimensions, allowing us to move on.
— Mark, Imaginary Numbers
Have you ever wondered why clouds behave in such familiar ways when each specimen is so unique? Or why the energy exchange market is so unpredictable? In the coming age we must develop and apply nonlinear mathematical models to real world phenomena. We shall seek, and find, the hidden fractal keys which can unravel the chaos around us.
— Academician Prokhor Zakharov, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
