Physics

Roles: particle, observer, force, field, measurement, state, uncertainty

The science of matter, energy, and their interactions. As a source domain for metaphor, physics supplies models of causation (forces, fields), observation (the measurement problem), determinism (classical mechanics), and indeterminacy (quantum mechanics). Its metaphorical exports are particularly powerful because they carry the authority of scientific precision — calling something a “quantum leap” borrows not just a physical image but an aura of rigor, even when the mapping is loose.

As Source Frame (33)

• A Schedule Is a Moving Object → time-and-temporality
• Action at a Distance → software-programs
• Activation Energy
• Alignment Is Physical Alignment → artificial-intelligence
• Ball in a Pool → psychotherapy
• Catalysts
• Critical Mass
• Culture as a Control System → governance
• Darkness Is a Solid → vision
• Desires Are Forces Between the Desired and the Desirer → mental-experience
• Emotions Are Forces → mental-experience
• Environmental Impingement → nurturing-and-creation
• Equilibration → education, mental-experience
• External Events Affecting Progress Are Forces Affecting → event-structure
• Feedback Loops
• First-Principles Thinking
• Heisenbug → software-programs
• Influence Is Physical Force → organizational-behavior
• Knowledge of Past Events Is an External Event Exerting Force On → mental-experience
• Leverage Point
• Leverage
• Logic Is Gravity → intellectual-inquiry
• Lollapalooza Effect
• Nonlinearity
• Object Permanence
• Parkinson's Law
• Pendulation → psychotherapy
• Running Out of Steam → embodied-experience
• Scale Economies
• Second-Order Thinking
• Switching Costs
• Temperature Is Creativity → artificial-intelligence
• Tesler's Law

Applied To This Frame (4)

• embodied-experience → A Force Is a Moving Object
• science-fiction → Dyson Sphere Is Megastructure Ambition
• fluid-dynamics → Force Is a Substance Directed at an Affected Party
• science-fiction → Zero Gravity Is Weightlessness