Editorial October 14, 1996 Issue

Where the vision is

Russ Gerber

The need for powerful, far-reaching vision is paramount. I was reminded of this when I recently visited a city I hadn't seen in many years. My first impression was how little had changed in people's thinking. The more I observed and talked with others, the more I got the sense that, like it or not, everyday life for many people had become unhappily predictable and that things would not be headed in new and better directions anytime soon.

That's when the word vision came to mind. I started to think that that's what these people need.

And this led to an abrupt change in my viewpoint later that day. I was in this city to visit a friend who is an astronomer and who was working in an observatory perched on a mountaintop. It was a twenty-six-mile drive to the observatory, but worth every twist and turn of the mountain road to get there. The place is open to the public; still it was particularly nice to have a personal tour. While there, I met some of the other astronomers, saw how star data are charted and measured, and heard what kinds of things these men and women were looking into the heavens to see. But I was particularly taken by the depth of ideas these people were considering. From my visit that day it stood out to me that some far-reaching thinking was going on. Thinking that must have an impact on individual as well as organizational activity everywhere. And, I thought, if it was going on in one area, surely it must be going on all around, if we look for it.

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