magnetic attraction is coition

Categories: Comparisons

An historical example of metaphor and simile in scientific thinking:

"Fludd believed …Magnetic attraction was a 'coition or union' between bodies caused by the similarity of their nature. The lodestone, Fludd wrote, 'sucketh and attracteth from his center the body of Iron unto it, drawing forth of it his formal beams, as it were his spiritual food'."

Robert Fludd

The ideas of Robert Fludd, discussed in Glassie, J. (2012). A Man of Misconceptions. The life of an eccentric in an age of change. Riverhead Books

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Author: Keith

Former school and college science teacher, teacher educator, research supervisor, and research methods lecturer. Emeritus Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.