Comparisons – Page 36 – Science-Education-Research

we are built like houses

An example of a scientist's analogy

"The chemist has proved that we are built of shapen material, just as our houses are built of bricks, usually 9in ✕ 4in ✕ 3in, which can only be put together in a certain limited number of ways."

Armstrong, H. E. (1924) in H. E. Armstrong and the teaching of science 1880-1930 (Ed.: W H Brock, 1973), Cambridge University Press

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.

rusting of iron is murder

An example of an analogy used in teaching science:

"Young children are delighted to …be told that they are to act as a band of young detectives. For example, in studying the rusting of iron, they at once fall in with the idea that a crime, as it were, is committed when the valuable, strong iron is changed into useless, brittle rust, and with the greatest interest set about finding out whether it is a case of murder or of suicide, as it were – whether something outside the iron is concerned in the change, or whether it changes of its own accord.
A lady teacher…had been greatly amused and pleased to hear one of the girls, who was sitting at the balance, weight some iron [sic] that had been allowed to rust, suddenly and excitedly cry out, 'Murder!' This is the very attitude we desire to engender; we wish to create lively interest in the work, and to encourage it to come to expression as often as freely as possible."

Armstrong, H. E. (1898) in H. E. Armstrong and the teaching of science 1880-1930 (Ed.: W H Brock, 1973), Cambridge University Press

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

skin gradually forms on molten lead and tin

An example of a metaphor in writing about science:

"As it is a matter of common observation that heat alters most things, the effect of heating things in general should be studied…In the case of metals like iron and copper it is noticeable that although fusion does not take place, a superficial change is produced; the gradual formation of a skin on the surface of fused lead and tin is also easily perceived."

Armstrong, H. E. (1889) in H. E. Armstrong and the teaching of science 1880-1930 (Ed.: W H Brock, 1973), Cambridge University Press

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.

benzene has a hexagonal garment

An example of metaphor in writing about science:

"Kekulé gave Benzene its hexagonal garment only in the year in which I entered the Royal College: Benzene Chemistry, Molecular Physics, every sort of modern use of Electricity, are all creations of my epoch."

Armstrong, H. E. (1933) in H. E. Armstrong and the teaching of science 1880-1930 (Ed.: W H Brock, 1973), Cambridge University Press

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

discovery learning methods spread like a virus

An examples of a simile drawing upon a scientific concept:

"The teaching of science in the school was placed on an equal level with religious and literary studies; inevitably it was Armstrong who devised the science syllabus. Later, a 'virus heuristicum Armstrongii' spread to other subjects like geography, languages and history.
…
But it is undoubtedly in the field of education that Armstrong made his most lasting contribution. The 'virus heuristicum Armsotrongii' of discovery methods is no longer something peculiar to Christ's Hospital [school], but a methodology which is recognised to have its place in infant, junior and secondary education."

W. H. Brock (1973) Editor's introduction to H. E. Armstrong and the teaching of science 1880-1930, Cambridge University Press.

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.

science resembles carrying and fitting stones to a building

An example of a simile used by a scientist:

"In a comparison between science and art, we must of course not forget than in the former we have to do with systematic concerted efforts to augment experience and develop appropriate concepts for its comprehension, resembling the carrying and fitting of stones to a building, while in the latter we are presented with more intuitive individual endeavours to evoke sentiments which recall the wholeness of our situation."

Neils Bohr (2010) Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (first published 1961). Dover Publications, Inc.

Read about similes in science

Read about examples of science similes

human mind is like atomic physics

An example of an analogy from a scientific concept:

"An especially striking example is offered by the relationship between situations in which we ponder on the motives for our actions and in which we experience a feeling of volition. …The use of apparently contrasting attributes referring to equally important aspects of the human mind presents indeed a remarkable analogy to the situation in atomic physics, where complementary phenomena for their definition demand different elementary concepts. … In such an analogy, the impossibility of providing an unambiguous content to the idea of subconsciousness corresponds to the impossibility of pictorial interpretation of the quantum-mechanical formalism."

Neils Bohr (2010) Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (first published 1961). Dover Publications, Inc.

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

nuclear physics is modern alchemy

An example of metaphor in a scientist's writing:

"The invariability of the properties of the elements in ordinary physical and chemical processes is directly explained by the circumstance that in such processes, although the electron binding may be largely influenced, the nucleus remains unaltered. With his demonstration of the transmutability of atomic nuclei by more powerful agencies, Rutherford, however, opened a quite new field of research, often referred to as modern alchemy, which, as is well known, was eventually to lead to the possibility of releasing immense amount of energy stored in atomic nuclei."

Neils Bohr (2010) Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (first published 1961). Dover Publications, Inc.

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

spontaneous emission of light is similar to radioactive decay

An example of an analogy used in the development of science:

"…Einstein formulated general statistical rules regarding the occurrence of radiative transitions between stationary states, assuming not only that, when the atom is exposed to a radiation field, absorption as well as emission processes will occur with a probability per unit time proportional to the intensity of the irradiation, but that even in the absence of external disturbances spontaneous emission processes will take place with a rate corresponding to a certain a priori probability. Regarding the latter point, Einstein emphasised the fundamental character of the statistical description in a most suggestive way by drawing attention to the analogy between assumptions regarding the occurrence of the spontaneous radiative transitions and the well-known laws governing transformations of radioactive substances."

Neils Bohr (2010) Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (first published 1961). Dover Publications, Inc.

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

ethnographers face similar observational challenges to physicists

An example of analogy in a scientist's writing:

"In fact, when studying human culture different from our own, we have to deal with a particular problem of observation which on closer consideration shows many features in common with atomic or psychological problems, where the interaction between objects and measuring tools, or the inseparability of objective content and observing subject, prevents an application of the conventions suited to accounting for experience of daily life. Especially in the study of culture of primitive [sic] peoples, ethnologists not only are, indeed, aware of the risk of corrupting such culture by the necessary contact, but are even confronted with the problem of the reaction of such studies on their own human attitude."
…
Using the word much as it is used, in atomic physics, to characterise the relationship between experiences obtained by different experimental arrangements and visualisable only by mutually exclusive ideas, we may truly say that different human culture are complementary to each other. Indeed, each such culture represents a harmonious balance of traditional conventions by means of which latent potentialities of human life can unfold themselves in a way which reveals to us new aspects of its unlimited richness and variety."

Neils Bohr (2010) Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (first published 1961). Dover Publications, Inc.

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

atomic mechanics is like psychological analysis

An example of a scientist's use of analogy

"Indeed, the necessity of considering the interaction between the measuring instruments and the object under investigation in atomic mechanics exhibits a close analogy to the peculiar to the peculiar difficulties in psychological analysis arising from the fact that the mental content is invariably altered when the attention in concentrated on any special feature of it."

"…I am sure many of you will have recognised the close analogy between the situation as regards the analysis of atomic phenomena…and characteristic features of the problem of observation in human psychology."

Neils Bohr (2010) Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (first published 1961). Dover Publications, Inc.

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

life is like the quantum of action

An example of an analogy suggested by a scientist:

"On this view, the very existence of life must in biology be considered as an elementary fact, just as in atomic physics the existence of the quantum of action has to be taken as a basic fact that cannot be derived form ordinary mechanical physics. Indeed, the essential non-analysability of atomic stability in mechanical terms presents a close analogy to the impossibility of a physical or chemical explanation of the peculiar functions characteristic of life."

"…the essence of the analogy being considered is the obvious exclusiveness between such aspects of life as the self-preservation and the self-generation of individuals, on the one hand, and the subdivision necessary for any physical analysis on the other hand. Owing to this essential feature of complementarity [you can either have a creature alive or you can analyse its structure], the concept of purpose, which is foreign to mechanical analysis, finds a certain field of application in biology. Indeed, in this sense teleological argumentation may be regarded as a legitimate feature of physiological description which takes due regard to the characteristics of life in a way analogous to the recognition of the quantum of action in the correspondence argument of atomic physics."

"In fact, just as the quantum of action appears in the account of atomic phenomena as an element for which an explanation is neither possible nor required, the notion of life is elementary in biological science where, in the existence and evolution of living organisms, we are concerned with manifestations of possibilities in that nature to which we belong rather than with the outcome of experiments which we can ourselves perform."

"In a living organism, however, such a distinction between the measuring instruments and the objects under investigation can hardly be fully carried through, and we must be prepared that every experimental arrangement whose aim is a description of the functioning of the organism, which is well defined in the sense of atomic physics, will be incompatible with the display of life."

Neils Bohr (2010) Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (first published 1961). Dover Publications, Inc.

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies