by Gregory S Yablonsky (Washington University in St Louis, USA) & Belal E Baaquie (National University of Singapore, Singapore)

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.

• Science: What Is It?
• Three Realities of Science: Experimental (Controlled), Theoretical (Conceptual), and Applied (‘Real’) Realities
• How to Think Scientifically
• What are Reasoning and Explanation in Science?
• “Don't Stop Questioning!” (Einstein)
• What Is a Scientific Question?
• Types of Questions
• ‘Zoo’ of Scientific Metaphors
• Legends and Myths of Science
• Plato's Cave
• Zeno's Arrow
• Occam's Razor
• Buridan's Donkey
• Newton's Apple
• Maxwell Demon
• Schrödinger's Cat
• Eddington's Monkeys
• Turing Machine
• Science and “More than Science”
• Science in the Dangerous World