Comparisons – Page 32 – Science-Education-Research

if the sun were a large pumpkin the Earth would be a pea

An example of a comparison based on a familiar everyday scale:

"If the sun were a large pumpkin, the Earth would be a pea, the moon a poppy seed, and the Empire State Building in New York about as small as the smallest bacteria we can see through the microscope.

…

From the observed parallax, and the known diameter of the Earth's orbit, Bessel calculated that his star was 103 000 000 000 000 km away, that is, 690 000 times farther away than the sun! It is rather hard to grasp the significance of that figure. In our old example, in which the sun was a pumpkin and the Earth a pea rotating around it at a distance of 200 ft [feet, one foot is c. 0.3 m], the distance of that star would correspond to 30 000 miles [a mile is c. 1600 m]!

…

In our old simile, in which the Empire State building was symbolised by a bacterium, the Earth by a pea, and the sun by a pumpkin, the galaxies might be represented by giant swarms of many billions of pumpkins distributed roughly within the orbit of Jupiter, separate pumpkin clusters being scattered through a spherical volume with a radius only a little smaller than the distance to the nearest star [other than the Sun]. Yes, it is very difficult to find the proper scale in cosmic distances, so that even when we scale the Earth to a pea, the size of the known universe comes out in astronomical numbers!"

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

Read about quotidian comparisons

virus particles do not bother to unite into chromosomes

An example of anthropomorphism in popular science writing:

"Remembering that the diameter of one atom is about 0.000 3µ [µm], we conclude that the particle of tobacco-mosaic virus measures only about fifty atoms across, and about a thousand atoms along the axis. Altogether not more than a couple of million individual atoms!

This figure immediately brings to our mind the similar figure obtained for the number of atoms in a single gene and brings up the possibility that the virus particles may be considered as 'free genes' that did not bother to unite in the long colonies that we call chromosomes, and to surround themselves by a comparatively ponderous mass of cellular protoplasm."

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

This can be considered anthropomorphism as genes are not the kind of entities which can be 'bothered' and make decisions about whether to unite or surround themselves.

Read about anthropomorphism

Read examples of anthropomorphism in science

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.

Note: this speculation is out of date: we now understand virus genomes to consist of at least several and usually many genes.

Referring to virus particles as 'free genes' can be considered the use of simile, and referring to chromosomes as colonies of genes as an example of metaphor.

Read about similes in science

Read about examples of science similes

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.

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

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.

mollusc was the king of nature billions of years ago

An example of metaphor in popular science writing:

"…these changes in the properties of new generations combined with the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest lead to the steady process of evolution of species, and are responsible for the fact that a simple mollusc, who was the king of nature a couple of billion years ago, has developed into a highly intelligent being like yourself…"

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

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

Note: explaining evolution in terms of the survival of the fittest can be seen as a tautology, as the fittest are defined in terms of evolutionary success, so the key feature here is differential survival and reproduction.

Read about tautology

molecules bend and twist like tree branches in the wind

An example of simile in popular science writing:

"A very important point concerning the distribution of property-characterising pedants [i.e., the bases] along the fibrelike gene molecules, is that this distribution is subject to spontaneous changes resulting in corresponding macroscopic changes in the entire organism. The most common cause for such changes lies in the ordinary thermal motion, which makes the entire body of the molecule bend and twist like the branches of a tree in a strong wind."

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

Read about similes in science

Read about examples of science similes

[Note: the suggestion that most mutations in genes are due to thermal motion is not consistent with current understanding.]

bases in a gene are like pendants attached to a bracelet

An example of an analogy used in popular science writing:

"We may think of the gene as a long chain composed of periodically repeating atomic groups with various other groups attached to it, as pendants are attached on a charm bracelet; indeed, recent advances in biochemistry permit us to draw an exact diagram of that hereditary charm bracelet."

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

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

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.

To refer to the gene as a hereditary charm bracelet, is of itself a metaphor (which by itself would have an implicit meaning for a reader to infer), but here the metaphor is only used after the analogy is presented.

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

genes are like atomic nuclei in how they determine macroscopic structures

An example of analogy used in popular science writing:

"If a highly simplified physical analogy is to be permitted here, we may compare the relation between the genes and the living organism with the relation between the atomic nuclei and the large lumps of inorganic matter. Here too, practically all physical and chemical properties of a given substance can be reduced to the basic properties of the atomic nuclei that are characterised simply by one number designating their electric charge. Thus, for example, the nuclei carrying a charge of 6 elementary electric units will surround themselves by the atomic envelopes of 6 electrons each, which will give these atoms a tendency to arrange themselves in a regular hexagonal pattern, and to form the crystals of exceptional hardness and very high refractive index that we call diamonds. Similarly a set of nuclei with electrical charges 29, 16, and 8 will give rise to the atoms that stick together to form soft blue crystals of the substance known as copper sulphate.[*] Of course, even the simplest living organism is much more complicated than any crystal, but in both cases we have the typical phenomenon of macroscopic organisation being determined to the last detail by microscopic centres of organising activity."

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

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

[* Note: copper sulphate is an ionic substance, containing copper and sulphate ions, not atoms. The blue crystals (which never seemed especially soft to me) are of the pentahydrate, CuSO₄.5H₂O, so also contain water molecules (and therefore hydrogen nuclei) in the lattice.

Carbon does have"a tendency to arrange … in a regular hexagonal pattern" in graphite, but in "the crystals of exceptional hardness and very high refractive index that we call diamonds" it has a tetrahedral arrangement.]

genetic shuffling is like cutting a pack of cards

An example of analogy used in popular science writing:

"It is clear that such reshuffling of genes between two chromosomes of a pair, or within a single chromosome, will more probably affect the relative positions of those genes that were originally far apart than those that were close neighbours. Exactly in the same way, cutting a pack of cards will change the relative positions of the cards below and above the cut (and will bring together the card that was at the top of the pack and that card that was at the bottom) but will separate only one pair of immediate neighbours."

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

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

adenosine triphosphate is life's energy currency

An example of metaphor used in science journalism:

"Life's energy currency ATP using electricity from the grid for the first time

…

For the first time the gap between manmade electricity and the biochemical energy that powers life, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), has been directly bridged using a new to nature metabolic pathway. This discovery discards the need for complex membranes and the roughly 3000 reactions used by cells to generate ATP in nature and consists of just four enzymes."

Bradley van Paridon (2023) Life's energy currency ATP made using electricity from the grid for the first time, Chemistry World, Oct 2023 p.35

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

The title of this article seems to use 'energy currency' in a figurative sense. However, in the body of the article, it is suggested that ATP is a form of energy (which would be an alternative conception).

Read about the nature of alternative conceptions

Read about some examples of science misconceptions

Read about historical scientific conceptions

graphene's whizzy electrons grind to a halt

An example of metaphor used in science journalism:

"Theory also predicted that under the influence of these larger moiré superlattices, at certain 'magic angles', graphene's headline-grabbing whizzy electrons would effectively grind to a halt. With zero kinetic energy their behaviour is then governed almost exclusively by Coulomb interactions with other electrons, rendering strongly correlated electron effects like superconductivity."

Anna Demming (2013) Moiré materials stretch their scope, Chemistry World October 2023, pp.32-33.

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

absolute tonnes of nitrosamines are generated in your stomach

An example of metaphor in science journalism:

" 'The problem with nitrosamines is that the levels that they have to be controlled to [in pharmaceuticals] are so super low that proving a negative is, in many cases, beyond the capability of the testing technology at present,' explains Michael Burns, principal scientist at Lhasa.

The function of the software is to highlight to manufacturers when the various factors combine that could give rise to an important impurity, Burns says. 'Then it's up to them to assess that risk.'

But this is a huge job, Burns explains, because if you've got any secondary amine of any description in your product, it could form a nitrosamine, and secondary amines are everywhere: in drugs but also in food and in our bodies.

'This is part of the context that can get lost with the focus on the pharmaceutical world - that your stomach is an incredible reaction vessel, which is full of nitrites from our natural environment,' Burns says. 'It's very acidic, which is prime conditions for any amines in your stomach, you will generate absolutely tonnes of these chemicals anyway that you can't control'."

Julia Robinson (2023) Chemistry World, October 2023, pp.16-19, https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/addressing-the-saga-of-nitrosamine-contamination-in-drugs/4018123.article

A tonne is a megagramme, a thousand kilogrammes. However, here 'tones' seems to be used not in its scientific sense, but in the figurative sense of 'lots of'* (and moreover, in a contextual sense of 'lots of' – that is 'lots of, when we are concerned with very small quantities'!).

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

* Otherwise (if to be taken literally): A person may typically live for something in the region of 20 000-30 000 days (c.60-90years), so if we assume 'tonnes' (plural) means 2-3 tonnes over a whole lifetime then a person would have to produce a tonne of nitrosamines in 10 000 days – or about (0.1kg = ) 100g per day.

An article in the Encyclopedia of Toxicology confirms that:

"Nitrosamines can also be formed in the mouth or stomach if the food contains nitrosamine precursors. Under acidic pH in the mouth or stomach, nitrite or nitrates added to food or naturally occurring may combine with amines to form nitrosamines."

H. Robles (2014) Nitrosamines, Encyclopedia of Toxicology (Third Edition), Academic Press. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780123864543005236

But this same entry reports how the toxicity of these compounds is such that they are considered to be risk factors for cancer at a level of fractions of mg per day (note above: "the levels that they have to be controlled to are so super low …beyond the capability of the testing technology") – many orders of magnitude lower than would be generated in people's stomachs if the reference to 'tonnes' was taken literally – even as lifelong total.

electrons dance around a cyclic transition state during electrocyclisation

An example of the use of metaphor (and an English idiom) in science journalism:

"Long-time readers of this column will know that I love a cycloaddition – I've probably run hundreds of them over my career as an organic chemist. There was even a two-hour period immediately before my PhD viva where I could credibly claim to understand the fiendishly complex Woodward-Hoffman rules that were used to rationalise their outcomes in the pencil-and-paper days before computational chemistry. However, I have far less experience with their rarer cousin, the electrocyclisation.
On the surface, these reactions are pretty simple: electrons dance around a cyclic transition state, resulting in a double bond lost and a single bond gained.
…
A great example of a recent total synthesis that hinges on a couple of well-chosen (but well-hidden) electrocyclisations is the route taken to the phomopsene diterpenes by Yong-Qiang Tu of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Lanzhou University, China, and co-workers.

The route more-or-less begins with a Nazarov cyclisation/ring expansion cascade, an unbelievable disconnection that's about as obvious as a black cat in a coal cellar. "

Chris Nawra (2013) (+)-iso-Phomopsene (and friends), Chemistry World, October 2023, p.13. https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/-iso-phomopsene-and-friends/4018109.article

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

germline cells are fresh and unexhausted

An example of the use of metaphor in popular science writing:

"Now we come to a very important special type of cell division which leads to the formation of the so-called 'gametes' or 'marrying cells' which are responsible for the reproductive phenomenon.

At the very earliest stage of any bisexual living organism, a number of its cells are set apart 'in reserve' for future reproductive activity. These cells, located in special reproductive organs, undergo many fewer ordinary divisions during the growth of the organism than do any other cells in the body, and are fresh and unexhausted when they are called upon to produce new offspring."

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

'gametes' or 'marrying cells'?: The technical term gamete (the collective term for sperm and ova) derives (via Latin) from the Greek words for husband, wife and marriage.

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors