An example of simile and anthropomorphism in public science discourse:
"the very tough crystal that I mentioned earlier, with atoms of iron at the corners and at the face centres, that's actually called austenite, and normally it exists only at very high temperatures, so over 900 degrees centigrade. If you cool the steel, or do things to it, then it will change
And the picture I think people should have in mind when you talk about these crystalline arrangements. It's a crystal lattice, like a grid-work, you know, where the atoms are arranged in these equally spaced points. So it's a pattern, in effect, it's like wall paper, and that pattern needs to adapt to whatever temperature, pressure, etc, you subject it to. So, austenite transforms from a high temperature to the body-centred cubic structure but some of it remains, it does not want to change."
Professor Sir Harry Bhadeshia
Professor Sir Harry Bhadeshia (Emeritus Tata Steel Professor of Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge; Professor of Metallurgy, Queen Mary University of London) was interviewed on an episode ('Sir Harry Bhadeshia on the choreography of metals') of BBC's The Life Scientific
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