An example of an analogy used in science communication
"You could think of it as kind of the heartbeat of the world because most of the world's oceans' water passes through the Southern Ocean."
Prof. Steven L. Chown.
Prof. Steven L. Chown, Professor of Biological Sciences at Monash University, Melbourne and Director of Australian Research Council Special Research Initiative Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future, was speaking on and episode ('Should Antarctica be off limits?') of BBC Inside Science.
I have initially classified this as a simile – "as kind of the heartbeat of the world" – rather than an analogy, as there is limited explicit 'mapping' to explain the references.
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.
However, Professor Chown does include some explanation ("because most of the world's oceans' water passes through the Southern Ocean"), so I am considering this as analogy although the listener has to do some interpretation to fully appreciate the comparison.
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.
