The SKA and the unknown unknowns

Abstract

As new scientists and engineers join the SKA project and as the pressures come on to maintain costs within a chosen envelope it is worth restating and updating the rationale for the "Exploration of the Unknown" (EoU). Maintaining an EoU philosophy will prove a vital ingredient for realizing the SKA's discovery potential. Since people make the discoveries enabled by technology a further axis in capability parameter space, the "human bandwidth" is emphasised. Using the morphological approach pioneered by Zwicky, a currently unexploited region of observational parameter space can be identified viz: Time variable spectral patterns on all spectral and angular scales - one interesting example would be "spectral transients". We should be prepared to build up to 10% less collecting area for a given overall budget in order to enhance the ways in which SKA1 can be flexibly utilized.