An example of an analogy use in popular science writing:
"To Joule, work and heat had become incontrovertible, the one into the the other much like the dollar and the pound. They are both forms of money, and if one knows the exchange rate, one knows how many dollars are equivalent to one pound. Joule believed there was an exchange rate between work and heat. Naming this 'the Mechanical Equivalent of Heat' he set out to discover its value."
Paul Sen (2022) Einstein's Fridge. The science of fire, ice and the universe. William Collins.
This extract can also be seen as including a tautology: "if one knows the exchange rate, one knows how many dollars are equivalent to one pound". That ('how many dollars are equivalent to one pound') is in effect the definition of the exchange rate.
Read examples of scientific analogies
