Rail system and choreography metaphors in a couple of science articles

If you are going to use a metaphor/analogy when you’re writing about a science topic  because you want to reach beyond an audience that’s expert on the topic you’re covering or you want to grab attention from an audience that’s inundated with material, or you want to play (for writers, this can be a form of play [for this writer, anyway]), I think you need to remain true to your metaphor. I realize that’s a lot tougher than it sounds.

I’ve got examples of the use of metaphors/analogies in two recent pieces of science writing.

First, here’s the title for a Jan. 23, 2012 article by Samantha Chan for The Asian Scientist,

Scientists Build DNA Rail System For Nanomotors, Complete With Tracks & Switches

Then, there’s the text where the analogy/metaphor of a railway system with tracks and switchers is developed further and abandoned for origami tiles,

Expanding on previous work with engines traveling on straight tracks, a team of researchers at Kyoto University and the University of Oxford have used DNA building blocks to construct a motor capable of navigating a programmable network of tracks with multiple switches.

In this latest effort, the scientists built a network of tracks and switches atop DNA origami tiles, which made it possible for motor molecules to travel along these rail systems.

Sometimes, the material at hand is the issue. ‘DNA origami tiles’ is a term in this field so Chan can’t change it to ‘DNA origami ties’ which would fit with the railway analogy. By the way, the analogy itself comes from (or was influenced by) the title the scientists chose for their published paper in Nature Nanotechnology (it’s behind a paywall),

A DNA-based molecular motor that can navigate a network of tracks

All in all, this was a skillful attempt to get the most out of a metaphor/analogy.

For my second example, I’m using a Jan. 12, 2012 news release by John Sullivan for Princeton University which was published in Jan. 12, 2012 news item on Nanowerk. Here’s the headline from Princeton,

Ten-second dance of electrons is step toward exotic new computers

This sets up the text for the first few paragraphs (found in both the Princeton news release and the Nanowerk news item),

In the basement of Hoyt Laboratory at Princeton University, Alexei Tyryshkin clicked a computer mouse and sent a burst of microwaves washing across a silicon crystal suspended in a frozen cylinder of stainless steel.

The waves pulsed like distant music across the crystal and deep within its heart, billions of electrons started spinning to their beat.

Reaching into the silicon crystal and choreographing the dance of 100 billion infinitesimal particles is an impressive achievement on its own, but it is also a stride toward developing the technology for powerful machines known as quantum computers.

Sullivan has written some very appealing text for an audience who may or may not know about quantum computers.

Somebody on Nanowerk changed the headline to this,

Choreographing dance of electrons offers promise in pursuit of quantum computers

Here, the title has been skilfully reworded for an audience that knows more quantum computers while retaining the metaphor. Nicely done.

Sullivan’s text goes on to provide a fine explanation of an issue in quantum computing, maintaining coherence, for an audience not expert in quantum computing. The one niggle I do have is a shift in the metaphor,

To understand why it is so hard, imagine circus performers spinning plates on the top of sticks. Now imagine a strong wind blasting across the performance space, upending the plates and sending them crashing to the ground. In the subatomic realm, that wind is magnetism, and much of the effort in the experiment goes to minimizing its effect. By using a magnetically calm material like silicon-28, the researchers are able to keep the electrons spinning together for much longer.

Wasn’t there a way to stay with dance? You could have had dancers spinning props or perhaps the dancers themselves being blown off course and avoided the circus performers. Yes, the circus is more colourful and appealing but, in this instance, I would have worked to maintain the metaphor first introduced, assuming I’d noticed that I’d switched metaphors.

So, I think I can safely say that using metaphors is tougher than it looks.

4 thoughts on “Rail system and choreography metaphors in a couple of science articles

  1. David Kornhauser

    Greetings from Kyoto! Thanks for the critique on the DNA rail system news release.

    A couple of points of note: although I didn’t make this entirely clear in the release (I was aiming rather at brevity), each tile actually contains a complete copy of the system; the motors do not travel from one tile to another, so equating tiles with ties would not make sense. (This is clear in the original paper, of course, if you have access to it that is…) —Apologies for the confusion.

    Secondly, I regret to say that although I do not know Ms Chan at The Asian Scientist, I am flattered that she chose to run our release largely unchanged 😉

    The original is here
    http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/ific-dmp012012.php
    and will soon appear on our website as well.

  2. admin

    Hi David and Greetings from Vancouver! Thanks for dropping by and for giving some insight into exactly why the metaphor couldn’t be sustained throughout the whole piece. I appreciate the explanation and the addition to my store science info. on this topic.

    There’s dark side to using metaphors (something I didn’t mention in my original comments), they don’t usually hold up after a certain point and one has to compromise in some fashion. Go with the metaphor and break the science? Go with the science and drop the metaphor? Introduce a new metaphor that better describes this next aspect of the science while jarring the reader? etc. There is another problem with them too. (On the off chance you haven’t come across this before.) Apparently, commonly used metaphors in high school distort understanding of certain science concepts. For most of us, it doesn’t matter all that much but the misconception is problematic for anyone who’s studying the topic in the first and second year university. (If I remember rightly, it was Evelyn Fox Keller commenting about a ‘lighthouse’ metaphor.)

    I think metaphors are more helpful than problematic in most instances and would have made the same decision you did ‘take it as far as you can without breaking the science’. I had more problems with the Princeton piece since the change from a dance performance metaphor to a circus performance metaphor seemed arbitrary rather than necessary.

    Finally, thanks so much for letting me know where the original news release can be found and the name of original author. Cheers, Maryse

  3. David Kornhauser

    Hi Maryse— thanks for thoughtfully policing these metaphors. They are indeed slippery beasts, and I generally only employ them when I think they will be useful and not overly distracting.

    (Of course in this particular case, as you point out, the metaphor was rather handed to us to begin with. Or to be more accurate — from what I have learned speaking with the scientists themselves — from the start they designed the structures to resemble a rail system, so in a sense it isn’t a metaphor at all!)

    Metaphors taught in school are indeed often inaccurate, although they do serve a narrow educational purpose in at least giving most people a general sense of what is taking place. We can’t exactly expect that everyone will understand all of the science in its purest form. (Voltage can be described as water in a bucket? Well, yes and no…)

    My pleasure, and thanks again for noticing.

  4. admin

    Hi David! You’re very welcome although I’m embarrassed that you describe my efforts as ‘policing’ any metaphors (I really did not manage to communicate well). And, thanks for the insight into how the whole thing was designed in the first place. (It’s always good to get the inside scoop.) Yes, those ‘inaccurate’ metaphors in school do serve an important purpose, especially for ignorant sots such as myself. I am fascinated by the fact that they are sufficiently powerful to affect serious science types (1st and 2nd year university students) such that their understanding of new concepts is affected. Cheers, Maryse

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