  We model the time evolution of a Bose-Einstein condensate, subject to a
special periodically excited optical lattice, by a unitary quantum operator U
on a Hilbert space H. If a certain parameter alpha = p/q, where p and q are
coprime positive integers, then H = L^2(R/Z,C^q) and U is represented by a q x
q matrix-valued function M on R/Z that acts pointwise on functions in H. The
dynamics of the quantum system is described by the eigenvalues of M. Numerical
computations show that the characteristic polynomial det(zI - M(t)) =
Prod_j=1^q (z - lambda_j(t)) where each lambda_j is a real analytic functions
that has period 1/q. We discuss this phenomena using Newton's Theorem,
published in Geometria analytica in 1660, and modern concepts from analytic
geometry.
