An example of a simile used to explain a scientific idea:
"It is difficult to appreciate what a temperature of 15,000, 000˚C means. If the solar surface and not the centre were as hot as this, the radiation emitted into space would be so great that the whole Earth would be vaporised within a few minutes. Indeed, this is just what would happen if some cosmic giant were to peel off the outer layers of the Sun like skinning an orange, for the tremendously hot inner regions would then be exposed. Fortunately, no such circumstance is possible and the outer layers of the Sun provide a sort of blanket that protects us from its inner fires. Yet in spite of these blanketing layers some energy must leak through from the Sun's centre to its outer regions and this leakage is of just the right amount to compensate for the radiation emitted by the surface into surrounding space."
Fred Hoyle (1960) The Nature of the Universe (Revised ed.), 1960
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An analogy is drawn here between the structure of the sun and that of an orange. (The negative analogy is considerable – the peel of an orange is relatively thin, and is a quite distinct structure, for example.)
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