When I was in high school my best friend spent a year as an exchange student in Norway. When she returned to the states she brought with her this folding cardboard game which had a very surprising element to it. You would place three cards next to each other and count the elves on the cards, there were 12 total I believe, but if you put the cards in a different order there were only 11 elves. It was boggling and no matter how closely we examined it, held our fingers on specific elves as we were moving the cards around, we could never figure it out. It was ALWAYS surprising.
I have that same kind of fascination for surprising science experiments.
One I remember from middle school was shocking. You would talk about milk. Discuss whether you liked it. What it felt like when you drank it, what it tasted like etc. Then you would be blindfolded and told that you were drinking milk but instead you were actually given orange juice. Half the kids would spit the orange juice right out it tasted so odd when compared to the milk you were expecting. The surprise of drinking something different then you are expecting is ALWAYS surprising even when you know what is happening. Similarly, no matter how many times I watch the video below it surprises me. It doesn't matter that I now understand why it happens, it still surprises me.
Amazing Science Experiment - Click here for this week’s top video clips
I love this kind of surprise! I am fascinated with things that befuddle the experts and really delight in the fact that we humans still know very little. Illusion and magic are surprising in their particular way but I am personally more interested in surprising reality!
Surprising telescope observations shake up galactic formation theories
New, Surprising Picture Emerges of Sub-Seafloor Magma Formation
New Satellite Observations of Terrestrial Gammaray Flashes Reveal Surprising Features of Mysterious
Surprising observations on phenomena created from modified 2·45 GHz source
Next Post: Small surprises
My 13 bliss virtues: joy, order, creativity, passion, whimsy, serenity, inquiry, community, romance, gratitude, moxie, humility, surprise
