Comparisons – Page 29 – Science-Education-Research

there are means to read the annals of a former earth

An example of metaphor in writing about science"

"…so far as it is to natural causes that are to be ascribed the operations of former time, and so far as, from the present state of things, or knowledge of natural history, we have it in our power to reason from effect to cause, there are, in the constitution of the world, which we now examine, certain means to read the annals of a former earth.

… WE are now, in reasoning from principles, come to a point decisive of the question, and which will either confirm the theory, if it be just, or confute our reasoning, if we have erred. Let us, therefore, open the book of Nature, and read in her records, if there had been a world bearing plants, at the time when this present world was forming at the bottom of the sea."

James Hutton (1788) Theory of the Earth

Reading the book of Nature is a common idiom in science writing but here Hutton also suggests the geological records offers 'annals' of the past forms of the earth.

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Many examples of science metaphors are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.

Note that nature is personified as 'her'.

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Many examples of personification are included in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.

volcano should be considered as a spiracle

An example of a metaphor used by a scientist:

"A VOLCANO is not made on purpose to frighten superstitious people into fits of piety and devotion, nor to overwhelm devoted cities with destruction; a volcano should be considered as a spiracle to the subterranean furnace, in order to prevent the unnecessary elevation of land, and fatal effects of earthquakes; and we may rest assured, that they, in general, wisely answer the end of their intention, without being in themselves an end, for which nature had exerted such amazing power and excellent contrivance."
James Hutton (1788) Theory of the Earth

Athanasius Kircher had earlier also suggested that volcanoes are the breath-pipes of Nature.

Arguably, 'furnace' may also be considered metaphorical, although Hutton seemed to think there was actually fire burning inside the earth.

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This quote also implies that a volcano has been designed for a purpose (see also 'internal heat of the Earth is for the purpose of maintaining plants and animals') – an example of teleology.

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Examples of teleological statements are included in a document listing a wide range of examples of science analogies, similes, metaphors and the like, drawn from diverse sources, which can be downloaded using this link: 'Creative Comparisons: Making Science Familiar through Language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts.'

transverse section of mineral resembles typographic characters

An example of a simile used by a scientist to describe a natural phenomenon:

"This siliceous substance, viewed in one direction, or longitudinally, may be considered as columnar, prismatical, or continued in lines running nearly parallel. These columnar bodies of quartz are beautifully impressed with a figure on the sides, where they are in contact with the spar. This figure is that of furrows or channels, which are perfectly parallel, and run across the longitudinal direction of the quartz. This is represented in fig. 4. This striated figure is only seen when, by fracture, the quartz is separated from the contiguous spar.

But what I would here more particularly represent is, the transverse section of those longitudinal siliceous bodies These are seen in fig. 1. 2. and 3. They have not only separately the forms of certain typographic characters, but collectively give the regular lineal appearance of types set in writing."

James Hutton (1788) Theory of the Earth

images of minerals form Hutton's Theory of the Earth — Plate from Hutton's Theory of the Earth

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Many examples of science similes are listed in 'Creative Comparisons: Making Science Familiar through Language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.

indentations in gravel resemble sutures in the cranium

An example of an analogy used by a scientist to support an argument:

"THIS Spanish marble may be considered as a species of pudding-stone, being formed of calcareous gravel…The gravel of which this marble is composed, consists of fragments of other marbles of different kinds. Among these, are different species of oolites marble, some shell marbles, and some composed of a chalky substance, or of undistinguishable parts. But it appears, that all these different marbles had been consolidated or made hard, then broken into fragments, rolled and worn by attrition, and thus collected together, along with some sand or small siliceous bodies, into one mass. Lastly, This compound body is consolidated in such a manner as to give the most distinct evidence, that this had been executed by the operation of heat or simple fusion.

THE proof I have is this, That besides the general conformation of those hard bodies, so as to be perfectly adapted to each other's shape, there is, in some places, a mutual indentation of the different pieces of gravel into each other; an indentation which resembles perfectly that junction of the different bones of the cranium, called sutures, and which must have necessarily required a mixture of those bodies while in a soft or fluid state."

James Hutton (1788) Theory of the Earth

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Many examples of science analogies are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.

cool air tries to push away the warm air

An example of anthropomorphism in public science discourse:

"So what we've seen in the past couple of days in Southern and Eastern Spain is a weather phenomenon which is known as Dana, or D-A-N-A. And this is not something that is unusual in the area, however of course the unprecedented amount of rainfall that has fallen is very much unusual. And what's actually happening is that cool air from the North is being drawn across the warmer Mediterranean waters. And essentially what happens is this cool air tries to push up and push away the warm air, and this increases the moisture being held in the atmosphere; you get these storm clouds developing, and intense storms, and heavy rainfall. Now, what we have actually seen here is the Jet Stream high up in the atmosphere, it can meander like a river, and what can happen is it creates a cut off area of low pressure. Essentially, this has stalled a regenerating storm system over this part of Spain and particularly the Valencia region. … So, the Mediterranean this year, particularly, we've had records broken, in terms of sea surface temperatures, so the sea, the water, is very warm; we've got this cool air coming in from the North, and it's literally… sucking up the energy and the moisture from the warm sea, and the area that's been effected is fairly mountainous as well, and this is sort of perpetuating these storm clouds and rainfall. And all of this coming together, is so to create this sort of perfect storm."

Dr Jess Neumann (Department of geography and environmental science, University of Reading) was being interviewed on an episode ('Global warming strikes again') of 'Science in Action'.

This is an example of antrhropomorphism as air is not able to 'try' anything; so the phrase 'cool air tries to push up and push away the warm air' cannot explain anything as air is not a sentient agent.

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Many examples of anthropomorphism are listed in 'Creative comparisons: Making science familiar through language. An illustrative catalogue of figurative comparisons and analogies for science concepts'. Free Download.

The reference to the Jetstream meandering like a river can be considered a simile.

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Cool air is not literally sucking up anything – from a scientific perspective 'sucking' is not considered a legitimate force (but it is a perfectly acceptable and widely understood informal everyday expression).

Read about sucking as an alternative conception

leaves on wind-blown branches are warmed like waved hot hands are cooled

An example of an analogy used in explaining science:

"Another analogous fact deserves notice: we observed on several occasions that a greater number of free leaves were injured on the branches which had been kept motionless by some of their leaves having been pinned to the corks, than on the other branches. This was conspicuously the case with those of Melilotus Petitpierreana, but the injured leaves in this instance were not actually counted. With Arachis hypogaea, a young plant with 7 stems bore 22 free leaves, and of these 5 were injured by the frost, all of which were on two stems, bearing four leaves pinned to the cork-supports. With Oxalis carnosa, 7 free leaves were injured, and every one of them belonged to a cluster of leaves, some of which had been pinned to the cork. We could account for these cases only by supposing that the branches which were quite free had been slightly waved about by the wind, and that their leaves had thus been a little warmed by the surrounding warmer air. If we hold our hands motionless before a hot fire, and then wave them about, we immediately feel relief; and this is evidently an analogous, though reversed, case."

Charles Darwin with Francis Darwin (1880) The Power of Movement in Plants. London: John Murray.

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ancient animals leave monuments

An (historical) examplec of metaphor in science writing:

"…with regard to the inferior species of animals, particularly those which inhabit the ocean and its shores. We find in natural history monuments which prove that those animals had long existed; and we thus procure a measure for the computation of a period of time extremely remote, though far from being precisely ascertained…

IT is thus that, in finding the relics of sea-animals of every kind in the solid body of our earth, a natural history of those animals is formed, which includes a certain portion of time; and for ascertaining this portion of time, we must again have recourse to the regular operations of the world."

James Hutton (1788) Theory of the Earth

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gravity is a tendency to rejoin mother

An example of simile used to explain (historical) scientific ideas:

"For Copernicus, furthermore, gravity still remained a tendency or an aspiration in the alienated body, which rushed, so to speak, to join its mother – it was not a case of the earth exercising an actual 'pull' on the estranged body. …

Kepler must have an important place in the story because, under the influence of the magnetic theory, he turned the whole problem of gravity into a problem of what we call attraction. It was no longer a case of a body aspiring to reach the earth, but, rather, it was the earth which was to be regarded as drawing the body into its bosom."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

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electrical supply is like a waterfall

An analogy used to explain science:

"Tesla coils are high frequency, high voltage, they're a little bit different to lightning which is high current, high voltage. If you use the waterfall analogy, voltage is the height of the waterfall, and the current is the amount of water coming over it, because you can imagine that a waterfall which just has little drips coming off it, if you are standing at the bottom that's not going to feel like much."

Dr Daniel Mitchard (Senior Lecturer, Cardiff School of Engineering, Cardiff University) was talking on an episode ('The Shock Factor') of the BBC Radio 4 programme/podcast 'Curious Cases'.

This seems a productive analogy, as long as it is recognised it inherently includes resistance – drops of water soon reach a terminal velocity because of air resistance – otherwise drops from a very tall waterfall could do a lot of damage as they would be moving very fast at impact. Similarly in a simple circuit, closing a switch leads to the p.d. acting accelerating electrons, but the resistance very quickly leads to a constant drift velocity.

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light reflects from particles in a body as from a field of corn

An example of analogy used to explain science:

"And just as the colours of plush or velvet will vary as you stroke one part of the fabric one way and another part another way just as the wind creates waves of colour and shadow in a field of corn as it falls differently in different parts of it so the posture and inclination of the particles in a given body will govern the way the light is modified before it is returned to the eye."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

Butterfield is discussing the ideas of Robert Boyle. There is something of a double analogy here. The suggestion is that the arrangement of the submicroscopic particles in a material are responsible for the way light is reflected. This is (1) similar to the way some materials seem to change appearance as you brush them and reconfigure the surface, which in turn is (2) like the way the corn field appears different according to how wind changes the angle at which one is seeing the corn!

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supernova is the death-agony of a star

An example of metaphor and simile in popular science writing

"For a short time the output of energy is staggering, but when the outburst is spent all that is left is a patch of expanding gas together with a very small, super-dense 'stellar wreck' made up of particles called neutrons. In fact, a supernova represents the death-agony of a very massive star."
Sir Patrick Moore

Moore, P. (1994). The Great Astronomical Revolution. 1534-1687 and the Space Age epilogue. Albion Publishing.

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arteries force the blood forward as though a rope had been twisted round them

An example of simile in writing about science:

"…Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608-79), who was a mathematician and a friend of Galileo. His book On the Motion of Animals, published in 1680-81, just after his death, represented a supreme example of the application of the science of mechanics to the study of the living organism. …

Starting from the work of William Harvey, he examined the action of the fibres of the heart, and calculated that, to maintain the circulation, the heart at each beat must exert a force equivalent to not less than 135,000 Ib. We find him comparing the heart to a piston or a wine-press. Also, he worked out that if the blood flows evenly from the arteries, through the minute capillaries, into the veins (for its return journey to the heart), this steady flow is due to the elastic reactions of the arterial walls. The arteries after expansion contract and force the blood forward as though a rope had been twisted round them – so that a certain regularity in the flow is not directly, but indirectly, attributable to the beats of the heart itself."

Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London.

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