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SCIENCE
ALAN P. LIGHTMAN
science.
I remember the day, during my first I will illustrate this point with some
course
examples
in cosmology, when the professor was tryingfrom physics.
to explain how the universe could be In an essay on light and color in 1672,
expand-
published
ing outward in all directions, but without anyin Philosophical Transactions of
the Royal
center of the expansion. To his credit, the Society, Isaac Newton describes his
first experiments with a prism. He darkened
teacher had covered the blackboard with
his pic-
equations, but we students still couldn't chamber, made a small hole in his "win-
dow-shuts,"
ture the situation. How could something ex- and let a ray of sunlight enter a
prism and
plode uniformly in all directions without a spread out into colors on the oppo-
site wall. He then interprets this phenomenon
middle of the explosion? Then, the professor
in terms of a theory of light:
said to pretend that space is two-dimensional
and that the stars and galaxies are dots on the
surface of an expanding balloon. From Thenthe
I began to suspect whether the rays, after
their are
point of view of any one dot, the other dots trajection through the prism, did not move in
curved
moving away from it in all directions, yet nolines, and according to their more or less
curvity tend to divers parts of the wall. And it
dot is the center. This powerful metaphor,
increased my suspicion, when I remembered that I
first introduced by Arthur Eddington in 1931,
had often seen a tennis ball struck with an oblique
has helped students of cosmology ever since,
racket describe such a curved line. . . . For the same
in every country and every languagereason,
where if the rays of light should possibly be glob-
the subject is taught. It works for anyone
ular who
bodies, and by their oblique passage out of one
has seen a balloon inflated. medium into another, acquire a circulating motion,
they ought to feel the greater resistance from the
Metaphor is critical to science. Metaphor in
ambient ether on that side where the motions con-
science serves not just as a pedagogical de-
spire, and hence be continually bowed to the other.
vice, like the cosmic balloon, but also as an
aid to scientific discovery. In doing science, it
is almost impossible not to reason by physicalThis passage is particularly revealing because
analogy, not to form mental pictures, notitto is a diary of Newton's personal thoughts in
imagine balls bouncing and pendulums trying to understand the nature of light. Al-
swinging. Metaphor is part of the process though
of Newton subsequently rejected the
idea that light rays can curve through space,
he continued to develop his corpuscular the-
O ALAN P. LIGHTMAN is professor of science
ory of light. In Query 29 of the Opticks (1704),
and writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
Newton writes that rays of light are "bodies of
nology and a physicist at the Smithsonian Astro-
physical Observatory. His essays on science have different sizes, the least of which may take
appeared in Harper's, The New Yorker, Smithso- violet, the weakest and darkest of the colours
and the most easily diverted by refracting
nian, Science 86, and other publications. His latest
book is A Modern Day Yankee in a Connecticutsurfaces." The largest and strongest light cor-
Court. puscles carry red, the color least bent by a
97
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THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR
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PHYSICISTS' USE OF METAPHOR
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THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR
theto
matically equivalent, but they bring small
mindreflect the terrestrial world obvi-
very different pictures. As Richardously exercises a great magic on mankind's
Feynman
mind." Referring
comments in The Character of Physical Law to this same Bohr model,
Werner Heisenberg
(1965), they are equivalent scientifically but warned that "quantum
very different "psychologically,"mechanics has above all to free itself from
especially
when we are trying to guess new these
lawsintuitive
of pictures . . . that in principle
[are]the
nature. In one picture, we focus on nottwo
testable and thereby could lead to
masses; in the other, on the spaceinternal contradictions" (Die Naturwissen-
between
them. schaften, Vol. 14).
In the 1920s and 1930s, there were two
Physicists have a most ambivalent relation-
ship with metaphor. We desperately competing
want formulations
an of quantum theory,
intuitive sense of our subject, but we have
eventually shown to be mathematically equiv-
also been trained not to trust too much in our alent. Heisenberg was the architect of the
intuition. We like the sturdy feel of the earthhighly abstract version; Erwin Schrodinger
under our feet, but we have been informed by had worked out a more visual theory. In a
our instruments that the planet is flyingletter to Wolfgang Pauli in 1926, Heisenberg
through space at a hundred thousand miles wrote, "The more I reflect on the physical
per hour. We find comfort in visualizing portion
an of Schrodinger's theory the more dis-
electron as a tiny ball, but we have also been gusting I find it."
shocked to discover that a single electron can Schrodinger, in his reply in the Annalen der
Physik, wrote that he felt "repelled by the
spread out in ripples, like a water wave, oc-
cupying several places at once. We crave themethods of transcendental algebra" in Hei-
certainty of our equations, but we must givesenberg's theory, "which appeared very dif-
names to the symbols. At the age of twenty-ficult" and had a "lack of visualizability." A
five, Maxwell reflected on both the service few years later, in 1932, Professor Heisenberg
ascribed the nuclear force between a proton
and the danger of physical analogy in a paper
entitled <On Faraday's Lines of Force" and a neutron to the "migration" (Platz-
(1856), published in the Transactions of thewechsel) of an electron between them. Where
Cambridge Philosophical Society: did the alphas and betas in Heisenberg's
matrices or the readings from the electrome-
ters say that an electron could migrate? Re-
The first process therefore in the effectual study of
science, must be one of simplification and reduction
markably, Heisenberg's image of migrating
of the results ... to a form in which the mind can
particles as agents of force led three years
grasp them. . . . We must, therefore, discover some later to Hideki Yukawa's successful predic-
method of investigation which allows the mind at
tion of a new elementary particle, the meson.
every step to lay hold of a clear physical conception,
Ultimately, Bohr himself was frustrated in
without being committed to any theory founded on
the physical science from which that conception is attempts to intuitively grasp the world of
his
borrowed. the atom. In 1928, he lamented (Nature Sup-
plement, April 14, 1928):
When the quantum theory was being devel-
oped, in the first two decades of this century, We find ourselves here on the very path taken by
physicists agonized over their inability to pic-Einstein of adapting our modes of perception bor-
rowed from the sensations to the gradually deepen-
ture the wave-particle split personality of sub-
ing knowledge of the laws of nature. The hin-
atomic particles. In fact, physicists violently
drances met with on this path originate above all in
disagreed over whether such pictures werethe fact that . . . every word in the language refers to
even useful. In 1913, Niels Bohr, a pioneer ofour ordinary perceptions.
quantum theory, proposed a model for the
atom in which electrons orbited about a cen- Many contemporary physicists have essen-
tral nucleus. Max Born commented a decade tially given up trying to describe the units of
later (Die Naturwissenschaften, Vol. 27)nature that by anything based on common sense. t
"a remarkable and alluring result of Bohr's Richard Feynman has remarked that he can
atomic theory is the demonstration that picture
the invisible angels but not light waves.
atom is a small planetary system . . . the Steven Weinberg, like Bishop Berkeley,
thought that the laws of the macrocosmos in seems on the brink of abandoning the material
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PHYSICISTS' USE OF METAPHOR
and tactile
world altogether when he says that after you relation to their subjects. Descartes
have described how an elementary particle
could see the disjointed image of a pen half in
behaves under various mathematical opera-
water and half in air. Du Fay could rub cats'
tions, "then you've said everything there is to copal or gum-lack or silk. Count
fur against
say about the particle . . . the particle is noth-
Rumford could feel the heat in a cannon just
ing else but a representation of its symmetry
bored. But in the last century or so, science
group" (R. Crease and Mann, The hasSecond
changed. Physics has galloped off into
Creation: Makers of Revolution in Twentieth
territories where our bodies cannot follow.
Century Physics, 1986). Yet physicists
We havestill
built enormous machines to dissect
use metaphors. Cosmologists still discuss how
the insides of atoms. We have erected tele-
the universe "expanded and cooled" during
scopes that peer out to unimaginable dis-
the first nanosecond after its birth. Relativists
tances. We have designed cameras that see
still talk about the "semipermeable mem- colors invisible to human eyes. Theorists have
brane" around a black hole. String theorists worked out equations to describe the begin-
still describe their unseen subatomic strings
ning of time. The objects of physics today are
as "stretching, vibrating, breaking." What far removed from human sensory experience.
other choice do we have? We must breathe,
As a result, it seems to me that metaphors in
even in thin air.
modern science carry a greater burden than
But there is a difference between meta-
metaphors in literature or history or art. Met-
phors used inside and outside of science. In
aphors in modern science must do more than
every metaphor, there is a principal and a
color their principal objects; they must build
subsidiary object, the literal and the meta-
their reality from scratch. Such substance, in
phorical, the original and the model. When
the palm of a modern physicist, is often hard
we use metaphors in ordinary human affairs,
to let go. Although aware that the ether was
we usually have a good sense of the principal
based only on mechanical analogy, Maxwell
object to begin with. The metaphor deepens
believed it existed. The year before he died,
our insight. When we hear that "the chairman
Maxwell wrote in the ninth edition of The
plowed through the discussion," we already
know a good deal about chairmen, commit- Encyclopaedia Britannica (1878) that he had
tees, and tiring discussion. But when we "no doubt that the interplanetary . . . spaces
say
are
that a photon scattered off an electron, what not empty but are occupied by a material
concrete experience do we have with elec- substance or body, which is certainly the
largest . . . body of which we have any knowl-
trons or photons? When we say that the uni-
edge." If a giant of science like Maxwell was
verse is shaped like the surface of a balloon,
what do we really know about how space seduced by his own metaphor, what can hap-
curves in three dimensions? pen to the rest of us? We ought not to forget
that when physicists say a photon scattered
Galileo admired Copernicus for being able
from an electron, they are discussing that
to imagine that the Earth moved, against all
common sense. But at least Copernicus un-which cannot be discussed. We can see the
tracks in a cloud chamber, but we cannot see
derstood that the Earth was a ball and had
an electron. Metaphors in science should be
seen other balls move. The objects of physics
handled
today, by contrast, are principally known as with caution, and with a clear knowl-
edge
runes in equations or blips from our instru- of the limits of our sensory experience of
the world.
ments. Earlier physicists had an immediate
101
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