Nonlinear thinker
If an airplane is cruising along and raises the flaps on its wings a degree or two, it will tilt upward. If it raises the flaps twice as much, it will tilt upward about twice as much. But if it tilts upward too far — generally more than 15 degrees — the airflow over the wings becomes chaotic, and anything can happen: the nose might jerk up, or it might jerk down; one wing could dip, or the plane could start to spin. In technical terms, within the normal operational range, airplane control is linear; outside that range, it’s nonlinear.Engineers prefer linear systems because they’re much easier to work with mathematically, but unfortunately, we live in a largely nonlinear world. So a lot of research is aimed at finding linear characterizations of the behavior of nonlinear systems. That research usually requires a great deal of mathematical insight and trial and...