I will be discussing a problem I am working on involving the spectral properties of Schrdinger operators with Sturmian potentials. This problem originated with a Nobel Prize-winning observation by a chemist in 1984. After being studied by math physicists, it was reduced to the purely dynamical behavior of a polynomial map on a manifold. The word "interdisciplinary" in the title of this talk refers both to a mathematical problem arising in another discipline and to the collaboration within mathematics across different research areas.