ABSTRACT
This chapter brings in images and considers their role alongside mathematics and language in construing the knowledge of physics. From the perspective of language, therefore, the field of physics is organised through a large set of relatively deep taxonomies of composition and classification, and a series of activity sequences involving entities that comprise these taxonomies. If one look from the perspective at mathematical genres, one can interpret the function of derivations as building and making explicit field-specific implication complexes. Diagrams are regularly used in physics to illustrate, exemplify, explain, explore and present a large range of technical meanings. Interpreted along these lines, the image shows an activity sequence where one event, an alpha particle moving from a polonium source to a beryllium block, is followed by three others events in succession. Graphs are regularly employed in physics to record measurements, illustrate patterns and highlight salient interrelations between technical meanings in physics.
