Going Through the Mirror: Science for the 21st Century: Metaphors and Metonyms in Science

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This book is a comprehensive presentation of an amazing variety of metaphors and metonyms in physics, chemistry and biology. Their crucial role in many disciplines has come to light only over the last few decades.This verbal symbolic reasoning can be considered as a framework of the scientific language of the 21st century. 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 special relationships between verbal symbolic reasoning (particularly metaphoric reasoning) and scientific motivation and humor.