Why science needs metaphor (Tasneem Zehra Husain, , 18TH APRIL 2024, New Humanist)
If science has a native tongue, it is mathematics. Equations capture, precisely, the relationships among the elements of a system; they allow us to pose questions and calculate answers. Numerically, these answers are precise and unambiguous – but what happens when we want to know what our calculations mean? Well, that is when we revert to our own native tongue: metaphor.
Mathematics is metaphor.