Public Understanding of Science 22(5) 538–545 © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0963662512473727 pus.sagepub.com P U S Indeterministic metaphors: The popular science books of Fritjof Capra and Gary Zukav Bradon TL Smith University of Edinburgh, UK Abstract 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. Keywords metaphors, popularisation of science 1. Introduction Gary Zukav’s The Dancing Wu Li Masters (1979), a popular science book on the new physics that achieved a cult status, is composed of twelve Chapter 1s. The rationale, seemingly, is to remind the reader of an exchange early in the book: ‘Every lesson is the first lesson,’ he told me. […] ‘But surely you cannot be starting new each lesson,’ I said. […] ‘When I say that every lesson is the first lesson,’ he replied, ‘it does not mean that we forget what we already know.’ (Zukav, 1979: 35–36) But this paradox of ‘starting new’ while ‘not forgetting what we already know’ is also analogous to Zukav’s presentation of the new physics – i.e. relativity and quantum mechanics (QM) – as a revolutionary overturning of classical Newtonian science. Zukav begins with the relatively equivo- cal position that ‘quantum mechanics does not replace Newtonian physics, it includes it’; but soon concludes that ‘the physics of Newton was a thing of the past’ (Zukav, 1979: 45, 90). Corresponding author: Bradon TL Smith, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, Hope Park Square, Edinburgh EH2 3DT, UK. Email: bradon.smith@cantab.net 473727PUS 22 5 10.1177/0963662512473727Public Understanding of ScienceSmith 13 Essay