TITLE: Do the equations used in Stargate make sense or are they gibberish?
QUESTION [7 upvotes]: Just wondering if equations used as props in SG1, atlantis and most recently Universe are just random and cool looking, or real/meaningful and cool looking.
Most recent episode of Stargate Universe S02E04 has a "corridor of equations" where dr nick Rush is trying to decipher something. Has anyone familiar with the show got an opinion on this?

REPLY [5 votes]: Awww, if you want screenshots of my Crazy Hall, all you have to do is ask! Yes, it's all legit math, and all internally consistant throughout the seasons. The core science is usually from peer-reviewed publications, just blended together in ways that don't typically make sense in the Real World (when would you ever feed the energy of a solar flare into a black hole, except with Stargate?)
I frequently use the established alien alphabets for variables, making it a bit more squiggle-loving, and anything that's going to be completed-by-an-actor is always simplified down to "write the last 1-3 characters," with the assumption that we're catching them at the end of a big scribble-fest. Thus, it wasn't really "Chloe knows how to integrate & Rush doesn't," as it was, "Chloe has thought of a new approach to this problem that Rush didn't." Each character has different and distinct handwriting associated with them (usually based off writing samples from the actor), but admittedly that'd almost impossible to spot in the fuzzy darkness that is Destiny's hallways.
For SGU specifically, the Crazy Hall evolved over time based on what the crew had encountered. For example, when going through the "How do we collect Lt. Scott from that shuttlecraft before we jump?!", an entire wall on orbital dynamics, with particular focus on energy needs for intersecting orbits, got added in.