Comparisons – Page 31 – Science-Education-Research

estimating temperature at core of sun is like calculating temperature inside a hot potato

An analogy used in popular science writing:

"In the sun, the temperature, which is only 6000˚C at the surface, increases gradually inward reaching in the centre the tremendous value of 20 million degrees. This figure can be calculated without much difficulty from the observed surface temperature of the solar body and from the known heat-conducting properties of the gases form which it is formed. Similarly we can calculate the temperature inside a hot potato without cutting it, if we know how hot it is on the surface, and what the heat conductivity of its material is."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

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accidental formation of molecules of life is like accidentally completing a jigsaw

An example of an analogy used in popular science writing:

"To be sure, the complexity of living molecules [sic] makes the probability of their accidental formation extremely small, and we can compare it with the probability of putting together a jigsaw puzzle by simple shaking the separate pieces in their box with the hope that they will accidentally arrange themselves in the proper way."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

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[For this analogy to work, one would need the jigsaw pieces shaken in a large enough box for the whole puzzle to be laid out – usually jigsaw puzzle boxes have a much smaller base surface area than the completed puzzle.]

material forming the planets was in heavy traffic

An example of an extended metaphor used n popular science writing:

"If the material forming the planets was formerly in the form of separate particles, say, 0.0001 cm in diameter, there must have been some 10⁴⁵ particles moving along the elliptical orbits of all various sizes and elongations. it is clear that, in such heavy traffic, numerous collisions must have taken place between the individual particles, and that, as the result of such collisions, the motion of the entire swarm must have become to a certain extent organised. In fact, it is not difficult to understand that such collisions served either to pulverise the 'traffic violators' or to force them to 'detour' into less crowded 'traffic lanes'. What are the laws that would govern such 'organised' or at least partially organised 'traffic'? … the nonintersecting traffic-rules pattern for individual groups of particles moving at the same mean distance from the sun and possessing therefore the same period of rotation.

…

By careful analysis of the situation Weizsäcker was able to show …an arrangement [that] would assure 'safe traffic' within each individual ring, but , since these rings rotated with different periods, there must have been 'traffic accidents' where one ring touched another."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

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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.

lead in radioactive rocks is like beer cans on Pacific islands

An example of an analogy in popular science writing:

"In fact, as long as the material of the rock was in the molten state, the products of radioactive disintegration could have been continuously removed form the place of their origin by the process[es] of diffusion and convection in the molten material. But as soon as the material solidified into a rock, the accumulation of lead alongside the radioactive element must have begun, and its amount can give us an exact idea of how long it was going on, in exactly the same way as the comparative numbers of empty beer cans scattered between the palms on two Pacific islands could have given an enemy spy an idea of how long a garrison of marines could have stayed on each island."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

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estimating the distance to a distant galaxy is like judging how far away an average-sized person is

An example of an analogy used in popular science writing:

"…the method of distance measurements based on pulsating stars, though giving excellent results when applied to quite a number of galaxies that lie in the neighbourhood of our Milky Way, fails when we proceed into the depth of space, since we soon reach distances at which no separate stars may be distinguished and the galaxies look like tiny elongated nebulosities even through the strongest telescopes. Beyond this point we can rely only on the visible size, since it is fairly well established that, unlike stars, all galaxies of a given type are of about the same size. If you know that all people are of the same height, that there are no giants or dwarfs, you can always say how far a man is from you by observing his apparent size."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

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galactic spiral arms are like breeding grounds for stars

An example of simile in popular science writing:

"Since…, the Blue Giants most probably represent the most recently formed stars, it is reasonable to assume that the spiral arms are so to speak the breeding grounds for new stellar populations."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

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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.

galaxies are like flocks of gas

An example of analogy in popular science writing:

"…the giant stellar clouds that we call galaxies. In fact, we can consider such a clustering of the billions of stars as a flock of gas in which the rôle of molecules is now played by individual stars."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

(Scientists do sometimes treat galaxies of stars as if collections of gas molecules for some purposes!)

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I have not some across the use of 'flock' in this context before, although if it was a metaphor (cf. flock of sheep) one would expect it to be a flock of molecules (discrete entities) not of a flock of gas (macroscopically a continuous material.

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pulsating stars are like pendulums of different lengths

An example of analogy in popular science writing:

"There are stars and stars. While most of them glow quietly in the sky, there are a few that constantly change their luminosity from bright to dim, and from dim to bright in regularly spaced cycles. The giant bodies of these stars pulsate as regularly as the heart beats, and along with this pulsation goes a periodic change of their brightness. The larger the star, the longer is the period of its pulsation, just as it takes a long pendulum more time to complete its swing than a short one."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

The comparison with pendulums seems a full analogy as there is an explicit mapping – size of star : period of pulsation :: length of pendulum : period of oscillation.

The other comparison seems to map as – bodies of variable stars: pulsate regularly :: heart : beats regularly. (The stars are actually much more regular than a human heart!)

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solar system is an autocratic state rather than a democracy

An example of an analogy used in popular science writing:

"It is of course, a pity that we cannot see the mysterious galactic centre around which our sun is spinning, along with billions of other stars. But in a way we know how it must look from the observations of other stellar systems of galaxies scattered through space far beyond the outermost limit of our Milky Way. It is not some supergiant star[*] keeping in subordination all the other members of the stellar system, as the sun reigns over the family of planets. The study of the central parts of other galaxies…indicates that they also consist of large multitudes of stars with the only difference that here the stars are crowded much more densely than in the outlying parts to which our sun belongs. If we think of the planetary system as an autocratic state where the Sun rules the planets, the Galaxy of stars may be likened to a kind of democracy in which some members occupy influential central places while the others have to be satisfied with more humble positions on the outskirts of their society."

…

"As we have already mentioned above, our Galaxy is not the only isolated society of stars floating about in the vast spaces of the universe."

[Capitalisation as in original]

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

This is an imaginative analogy, even if we now know it is unfounded. (* It is now considered that at the centre of the Milky Way galaxy there is a supergiant star, Sagittarius A* {a strong radio source not discovered till the 1970s} which is a supermassive black hole with a mass over four million times larger than our sun, around which other stars orbit.)

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The Sun ruling over the planets may be seen as metaphor, and the phrase and "the sun reigns over the family of planets" as something of a mixed metaphor.

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fossils are like a spilled watchmakers toolbox

A simile used on social media. A photograph (see below) of fossils published on Twitter was described as showing:

"A scattering of fossilized Crinoid segments and Bryozons like a spilled watchmakers toolbox.

County Donegal, Ireland."

Cormac's Coast, Twitter ('X')

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simile: A scattering of fossilized Crinoid segments and Bryozons like a spilled watchmakers toolbox. — A scattering of fossilized Crinoid segments and Bryozons like a spilled watchmakers toolbox (Copyright @cormac_mcginley, Source Twitter)

looking at the night sky is like viewing from a forest

An example of an analogy used in popular science writing:

"Looking in the direction of the Milky Way it is as though we are looking through a deep forest where the branches of numerous trees overlap each other forming a continuous background, whereas in other directions we see patches of the empty space between the stars, as we would see the patches of the blue sky through the foliage overhead."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

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tobacco-mosaic virus is like a solenoid

An example of an analogy used in popular science writing:

"It was long known that this virus [tobacco-mosaic virus], having the shape of long sticks…, is formed by a bunch of long straight molecules of organizing [sic] material (known as ribonucleic acid) with long protein molecules would around it like a coil of electric wire around the iron core in an electromagnet."

George Gamow (1961) One, Two, Three…Infinity. Facts and speculations of science, Revised Edition, Dover Publications, Inc., New York.

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