This sounds really interesting. I've thought about a similar type of problem, though relatively unrelated, involving protein folding. Then I realized that there were software solutions specifically designed to address the problem more accurately than something that could be done in maya.

I'm not a physicist or very knowledgeable about sub-atomic forces, but I'm wondering whether or not these sorts of problems would be outside the scope of the dynamics that were actually programmed into the software?
I guess what I'm saying is it might be the case (thought I don't know for sure) that these phenomena might be impossible to recreate as self-perpetuating dynamic systems, though this would in no way disprove any possibility that these do in fact occur.
I don't know if that made any sense, but it was just a thought I had.