I want to calculate the trajectory.
I'm thinking I should write some script that determines real-time the particle's location in the following frame, depending on some known variables.
This will...

I'd like to create an animation of a particle's scattering from a certain potential.
In 2D it may look like this:...

I didn't imagine spherical harmonics to be casual reading.
It's just that, someone had to know these things to develop Maya and other programs in the first place. I wanted to see how common it is.....

I've been away for a while, mainly studying for a physics B.Sc.
While looking at some of the more impressive and somewhat beautiful mathematics I now need to deal with, I stumbled across some...

check the normal perhaps? make sure they're pointing outwards. and make sure all UVs are mapped correctly within the (0,0) to (1,1) limit.

That question is much too general... You'll need to have a specific piece of armor in mind. Even if you want to create a full character - big projects start small :)

After that was said, modeling...

I think it should be possible to apply the function for each of the selected edges with a relatively simple script... not sure exactly how to build it though... Found this after a quick search:
...

http://forum.simplymaya.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15467&perpage=15&pagenumber=11

Last two posts may help you. This is Maya 8.5 but it shouldn't have changed much

Much better! Looking forward to seeing how this turns out :)

To elaborate Tweetytunes's complaint:
A hero is a person with common human characteristics, but these characteristics must stand out to in order to distinguish him/her from a regular person....