Going Through the Mirror, Science for the 21st Century

Scientific metaphors and metonyms are depicted as essential constituents of the transreal language based on unobserved characteristics, and their crucial role in many disciplines has only come to light over the last few decades. Such symbolic reasoning can be considered as a framework for a new language: the language of science in the 21st century. This book is a comprehensive presentation of verbal symbolic reasoning (metaphors and metonyms) in science. An amazing variety of metaphors in physics and chemistry are described, and the unique role of metaphors as a "bridge" between different levels of realities - micro-, meso-, and macro-realities - is explained in detail. Special attention is paid to the "magic triad" of fundamental metaphors (atom, molecule, gene) as well as metaphors of the "machine" and "book/text". Generously illustrated by a collection of scientific legends and myths, such as Plato's cave and Occam's razor, the book also analyzes the special relationships between verbal symbolic reasoning (particularly metaphoric reasoning) and scientific motivation and humor.