Abstrakt
Throughout the history of physics, there was no shortage of analogies or metaphors used in describing various subatomic phenomena. They usually share one primary goal, which is to frame certain phenomena in a way that is intelligible and easy to understand.
But their status in physical interpretations might differ. Some of them, like Thompson's plum pudding model, can be seen as relatively unproblematic and simple tools that could help us with basic visualization, but others may, thanks to their complexity and uncertain borders between resemblance and isomorphism, further complicate our understanding of phenomena they were created to illustrate.
The planetary model or, more widely, the corpuscular model of the particle it uses, could be instances of the latter. On one hand, phenomena treated in quantum mechanics are decisively non-visual in nature, because visuality is taken from the abstraction of the way large numbers of particles react with themselves, others, and with the spectator.
On the other hand, our understanding of the world was developed in a predominantly visual world, and we use visual metaphors or analogies all the time-quantum mechanics being no exception. This creates a peculiar situation where it should be advised to tread carefully-science, in opposition to other creative modes of sign-creation like art, should follow the most precise interpretation that brings the most probable results and should not create a myriad of vague and unprovable connections that would unnecessarily complicate the picture of reality.
The goal of this article is hence to offer a sketch of a Peircean treatment of analogy and metaphor in science, where, in Peircean terms, the univocality of analogies should be preferred over the equivocality of metaphors wherever it is possible.