Metaphorical Uses of an Electric Power Network

Early Computations of Atomic Particles and Nuclear Reactors

Résumé

To retrieve the constitutional importance of metaphors, analogies, and models in scientific computations of the immediate post-World War II period, we shall investigate the uses of an understudied artifact known as the ‘network analyzer’. As an electrical model of an electric power network, it was introduced during the interwar period as the best option to compute the complex environment produced by lengthening and interconnecting electric power transmission lines. Now considered an exemplar of the devaluated analog computer, ostensibly limited by being a special purpose machine, the network analyzer was used for many purposes beyond electric power transmission computations, including that of sciencerelated computations. We shall consider the suggestive case of its use in computing atomic particles and nuclear reactions, based on the metaphoric consideration of both as analogous to an electric power network.