Bob Berman's strange universe: Expect a surprise
July 2005: Face it, most of us aren't accountants or bureaucrats — we're restless, we want to be amazed. We love the unexpected.
By
Bob Berman Òš|Òš
Published: Friday, July 1, 2005
Astronomy enters our brains in two flavors — news that surprises us and news that doesn't. When we learn of another extrasolar planet, or of NASA's next Mars mission, it's nice, but we're hardly bowled over. Face it, most of us aren't accountants or bureaucrats — we're restless, we want to be amazed. We love the unexpected.
Surprise can be a tricky subject. A case in point is this headline in the April 4, 1979 Atlanta Journal: "Sneak Attack by Soviets Not Foreseen."