Is There a Language of Science?

There seems to be. Mars and I continue to work well together, despite our different backgrounds. It's a 'professional' relationship - we pretty much show up, work on the project, and go away. And in that sense it's a great relationship.
One of the delights of being an engineer (I'm a graphics programmer in RL)is the noticably low level of office politics. Not that there's none, but there's less than in any other enterprise I've been involved in. Who needs to create an enemy when there's the code base?
Or, in our case, waaaay too many quats and Euler angles. Little did we know when we started this just HOW MANY of these 3D rotation problems we'd have to work ourselves.
  Rob  actually sent me a script for this post, so I'll try to follow it. As we explained somewhere in the wiki, Mars and I met just 1 day before we started building. I ran into him at the planetarium at spaceport Alpha (if you haven't been, GO!) He showed me the virtual tech, and we decided on the spot to try to speed build an exhibit in 4 hours.
Well, 4 hours was enough to design, but not to build. So we've been building ever since.
The combination of wiki and SL works pretty well. The wiki is a bit too 'pull'. Sometimes I wish we just had a whiteboard in the exhibit to write on. Since we're on different time schedules, we often need to pass information like 'don't move this or that'.
Second Life isn't an ideal tool for prototyping. There are too many restrictions imposed by the rather clunky nature of SL. For example, things need to be bigger in SL than in RL, since everyone is 'clumsy'.  I'm used to working with CAD tools that, while they lack the immersive reality of wandering around inside it while you work, make up for it with far greater power.
Rob's last question was why we are doing this. I can certainly only speak for myself, not for Mars. My motives are a) It's fun! Any engineer who doesn't have fun with their skills isn't a good engineer. My goal as an engineer is 'to make software that makes my users smile'. b) it's a good way to learn a new technology. I've seen a lot of interesting things I can do in SL now. c) It's a good way to meet new folks and make useful contacts.