Tooltip Tags: Sun

sun burns faster when convex side of plano-convex lens is towards him

An example of personification in historic science writing,

"In my first lectures I shewed how a necessary account of ye true length of a yeare occasioned all the enquirys in Astronomy, first the Suns motion & its inequalities, next the lunar Periods. & her Anomalies then her distances…

I find it now more convenient when I goe to light my pipe of tobacco at ye Sun with a plano convex glasse, to turn the convex side towards him then the plaine, for then all the parallel raies meeting the Axis in a lesse length must needs burne faster than when the plaine side is towards him & I assure you in my opinion, as oft I trie it, the experiment confirmes what I had learnt by speculation & Theory…"

John Flamsteed letter of 1861, quoted in Eric G. Forbes (1975) Introduction, in The Gresham Lectures of John Flamsteed, London: Mansell Information Publishing Ltd.

By tradition, the moon is female and the sun male.

Read about personification in science texts

Read about examples of personifying nature

Read about other examples of personification

sun is like an emperor who does not hurry from city to city

A historical example of figurative language in making a scientific argument

"Under the commonly accepted principles of astronomy, it could be seen that all the celestial phenomena conform to the mean motion of the sun and that the entire harmony of the celestial motions is established and preserved under its control. Hence the sun was called by the ancients leader, governor of nature, and king. But whether it carries on this administration as God rules the entire universe, a rule excellently described by Aristotle in the De mundo, or whether, traversing the entire heaven so often and resting nowhere, it acts as God's administrator in nature, seems not yet altogether explained and settled. Which of these assumptions is preferable, I leave to be determined by geometers and philosophers (who are mathematically equipped). For in the trial and decision of such controversies, a verdict must be reached in accordance with not plausible opinions but mathematical laws (the court in which this case is heard). The former manner of rule has been set aside, the latter adopted. My teacher [Copernicus] is convinced, however, that the rejected method of the sun's rule in the realm of nature must be revived, but in such a way that the received and accepted method retains its place. For he is aware that in human affairs the emperor need not himself hurry from city to city in order to perform the duty imposed on him by God; and that the heart does not move to the head or feet or other parts of the body to sustain a living creature, but fulfills its function through other organs designed by God for that purpose.

Now my teacher concluded that the mean motion of the sun must be the sort of motion that is not only established by the imagination, as in the case of the other planets, but is self-caused, since it appears to be truly 'both choral dancer and choral leader'. He then showed that his opinion was sound and not inconsistent with the truth, for he saw that by his hypotheses the efficient cause of the uniform motion of the sun could be geometrically deduced and proved."

Rheticus (1959) The Narratio Prima (1539, Translated by. E. Rosen), in Three Copernican Treatises (Ed. E. Rosen) Dover Publications (pp.107-196).

Rheticus is here arguing for Copernicus's claim that the Earth moves around the Sun rather than (as appearances might suggest) the Sun moving around the Earth. Rheticus adopts the traditional metaphors (or perhaps it was seen as more than that at one time) as ther Sun as a 'leader', 'governor', and 'king', but develops the idea that an administrator (a shift that sees the Sun not as supreme leader, but an agent of God?) can either move around to visit sites or control form a central location (an analogy for the Sun moving or being located at the centre of the system). The Sun can remain still, just as the emperor can remain at home and still rule, and (another analogy) just as the heart does not need to visit the rest of the body to fulfill its function (today we would see this as supplying blood to all the tissues).

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

The idea of the Sun being 'both choral dancer and choral leader' (a choreographer can be part of the dance group following her choreography) can be seen as a simile.

Read about similes in science

Read about examples of science similes

magnetic field from the Sun to the planetary material behaves like elastic strings

An example of figurative language in popular science writing:

"Already, more than a century ago, Faraday showed that a magnetic field can be thought of as a collection of lines of force that behave in many ways like elastic strings. So a magnetic field extending outwards from the Sun to the planetary material would behave like a vast aggregate of elastic strings. And as the Sun rotated the strings would become stretched and twisted into a structure rather like a clock-spring. By calculation it can be shown that rather a moderate magnetic field would be sufficient to give a clock-spring winding strong enough to maintain the required connexion from Sun to planets. In short, the torque that conveyed rotational momentum from the Sun to the planetary material was maintained by a magnetic clock-spring. …

Next we bring our clock-spring into action. The magnetic fields existing already inside the solar condensation provided a bridge between the primeval Sun and its newly grown disc. The magnetic field would become wound into a 'clock-spring' and rotational momentum began to pass from the Sun to the disc.

…once they had condensed from the gas these these materials were no longer subject to the clock-spring action of the magnetic field. …

Which stars are without planets? Almost certainly the rapidly spinning blue giants, and for a reason that is readily understood. Any attempt [sic] to transfer rotational momentum from these stars to an outlying planetary disc is frustrated, not by any lack of a magnetic clock-spring, but because the clock-spring becomes much too strong, It becomes so strong that the outlying disc gets blown completely away into space."

Fred Hoyle (1960) The Nature of the Universe (Revised ed.)

That a magnetic field behaved like elastic strings is a simile, although this then get used as a metaphor ("…as the Sun rotated the strings…") that is withour any marking to show the strongs were figurative. Similarly the structure the 'strings' formed was like a clock-spring (another simile); but again this is then used as a metaphor ("…we bring our clock-spring into action…").

Read about similes in science

Read about examples of science similes

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

massive stars are extremely prodigal

An example of metaphor used in popular science writing:

"…consider a supergiant that contains ten times as much material as the Sun. Such a star would be at least a thousand times brighter than the Sun. The reason for this is that massive stars are extremely prodigal in the rate at which they consume hydrogen."

Fred Hoyle (1960) The Nature of the Universe (Revised ed.)

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

Prodigal means "spending or using large amounts of money, time, energy, etc., especially in a way that is not very wise" (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/prodigal), so arguably this is an anthropomorphic metaphor, as only a sentient being could be wise, or act in a way that was not wise. A star does not consider practical or ethical considerations, but just reflects the laws of physics.

Read about anthropomorphism

Read examples of anthropomorphism in science

outer layers of the sun are a sort of blanket

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

Read about similes in science

Read about examples of science similes

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.)

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

sun is a lantern which is the lamp of a very beautiful temple

An example of the use of metaphor and simile in scientific writing:

"In the centre of all rests the sun. For who would place this lamp of a very beautiful temple in another or better place than this wherefrom it can illuminate everything at the same time? As a matter of fact, not unhappily do some call it the lantern, others, the mind and still others, the pilot of the world. Trismegistus calls it a 'visible god'; Sophocles' Electra, 'that which gazes upon all things'. And so the sun, as if resting on a kingly throne, governs the family of stars which wheel around."

Nicolaus Copernicus (1543/1995) On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (Translator: Charles Glenn Wallis) Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors

Read about similes in science

Read about examples of science similes

Parker Solar Probe speed like flying from London to New York in less than 30 seconds

An example of an everyday comparison used to explain an extreme scientific fact:

"The Parker Solar Probe is plunging into our star's outer atmosphere, enduring brutal temperatures and extreme radiation…

The probe will have to endure temperatures of 1,400C and radiation that could frazzle the onboard electronics. It is protected by a 11.5cm (4.5 inches) thick carbon-composite shield but the spacecraft's tactic is to get in and out fast. In fact, it will be moving faster than any human-made object, hurtling at 430,000mph – the equivalent of flying from London to New York in less than 30 seconds."

Rebecca Morelle & Alison Francis (2024, 24th December), Spacecraft attempts closest-ever approach to Sun, BBC News on-line article

Read about quotidian comparisons used to explain science

Sun commands things to tend towards himself

A example of personification in writing about science

"…The Sun sitting on his throne commands all things

To tend downward toward himself, and does not allow the chariots of the heavenly bodies to move

Through the immense void in a straight path, but hastens them all along

In unmoving circles around himself as center.

…From this treatise we learn at last why silvery Phoebe moves at an unequal pace,

Why, till now, she has refused to be bridled by the numbers of any astronomer,

Why the nodes regress, and why the upper apsides move forward…."

Edmund Halley, from the Ode he wrote to Newton's Principia.

Pheobe, the moon of Saturn, was not discovered till 1899. Halley, writing in 1687 was using Phoebe as a poetic name for the Earth's moon.

Read about personification in science texts

Read about examples of personifying nature

Read about other examples of personification

our star has the responsibility for sustaining life on a planet

An example of anthropomorphism in everyday science discourse:

"So our star is just an average star. But, it is our star. It's the only one that we know that has the responsibility for sustaining life on a planet, So that makes it, you know, an extraordinary, ordinary star."

Dr Nicola Fox (Head of Science, NASA) was talking on an episode of the BBC radio programme/podcast 'Desert Island Discs'.

Read about anthropomorphism

Read examples of anthropomorphism in science

catalysts enable nuclear chain reaction

An example of analogy in science:

"Thus we see that the nuclei of carbon and nitrogen in our circular reaction chain are forever being regenerated, and act only as catalysts, as chemists would say…we may therefore describe the whole process as the transformation of hydrogen into helium as induced by high temperatures and aided by the catalytic action of carbon and nitrogen.

…

Since all other possible reactions lead to results inconsistent with the astrophysical evidence, it should be definitely accepted that the carbon-nitrogen cycle represents the process mainly responsible for solar energy generation.

…

In view of the basic part played in this process by carbon, there is something to be said after all for the primitive view that the Sun's heat came from coal; only we now know that the 'coal', instead of being a real fuel, plays the role of the legendary phoenix."

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

Here the notion of a catalyst as a substance that is involved in, but not used up in, a chemical reaction is extended (by analogy) to nuclear reactions for a nuclide that is involved in, but not used up in, a nuclear process.

Read about analogy in science

Read examples of scientific analogies

The passage describes a theoretical mechanism by which nuclear fusions (and so energy release) can take place within the Sun. It s now believed that this process takes place in heavier stars but that within our Sun a different mechanism is the primary means of fusion/energy release. Gamow's argument that all other feasible mechanisms were inconsistent with the evidence, and therefore the carbon-nitrogen cycle should be definitely accepted proved to be misjudged.

Strictly, scientific claims are seem as provisional in the sense that they are always open to being revisited in the light of new evidence or new ways of thinking about the evidence. Scientific observations usually rely on technical apparatus and so depend on instruments being well-calibrated and working according to the assumed theory. It is always possible to find alternative explanations for any data set (even if this sometimes stretches credibility). Rhetoric which refers to absolutely certain knowledge, or proof beyond doubt, is inconsistent with our understanding of the nature of science.

Read about claims of scientific certainty

The idea that the Sun was an enormous ball of burning coal was once taken seriously by scientists (before nuclear processes were known) but would now be considered an alternative conception.

Read about the nature of alternative conceptions

Read about some examples of science misconceptions

Read about historical scientific conceptions

Gamow reference to the 'coal' (actually carbon nuclides) playing the role of the Phoenix is not a normal metaphor as the reader would not make sense of it without knowing about the legend of the bird that would burst into flames, and then reappear resurrected from its own ashes. This may therefore be seen as using a form of idiom.

Read about communicating science through idioms

the Earth and Sun produce offspring each year

An historical example of extended metaphor in a scientist's writing:

"The earth moreover is fertilised by the sun and conceives offspring every year."

"Meanwhile the earth has intercourse with the sun, and is impregnated for its yearly parturition."

[These are two alternative translations from the original Latin]

Nicolaus Copernicus

Copernicus, N. (1543/1978). On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres

Read about metaphor in science

Read about examples of science metaphors