In the popular accounts of the new physics (i.e. relativity and quantum mechanics) by Fritjof Capra and Gary Zukav, the new physics is represented as fatally undermining the universal determinism associated with Newton and Laplace. This paper explores how different metaphors – anthropomorphic metaphors, metaphors of exploration and mapping, and metaphors of shadows – are used strategically by these writers to advance this characterisation of the new physics as indeterministic.
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