APL Science and Technology Vision
Volume 26, Number 4 (2005)
Scientific vision is problematic. It requires people who are most comfortable dealing with material over which they have complete mastery to speculate about what might lie well beyond the bounds of what can be seen clearly. Vision entails risk, because the view ahead will never be completely clear. Like a photographer with a very powerful zoom lens photographing a mirage near the distant horizon, an attempt to develop technical vision almost certainly produces a distorted version of what might be out there. However, the risk is worthwhile, because the exercise may also illuminate the intermediate territory with particular clarity.