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Fri 21 Jun, 2013 11:18 pm
Context:
We didn't even have a map opf the territory. This part of chromosome 7, like most of the genome, had never been explored in 1985. To pursue the metaphor, there were no street maps of towns and villages, no blueprints of buildings, certainly no inventory of lightbulbs. The work was brutal.
The writer is using a metaphor involving maps. The purpose is to discuss levels of detail. Knowledge of the (human?) genome is being compared to geographic knowledge of a territory or country. The widest, least detailed level of knowledge corresponds to having a map of the whole country. Then, extending the metaphor, as the author says, successively more detailed knowledge corresponds to availability of maps or diagrams at increasing scale: of towns, then of individual buildings, and finally the most detailed level corresponds to a list of all the electric light bulb sockets locations within one building.
@contrex,
Thank you Contrex.
Is "inventory of lightbulbs" is a rare usage in English?
@oristarA,
It's not a common phrase.
Homework: Students make an inventory of lightbulbs at their home and estimate the energy used for lighting at their home (American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges)
Complete inventory of lightbulbs and filters on hand (Trustee project list - St Pauls Lutheran Church Decatur Alabama)
Inventory Last Thursday and Friday we counted our inventory of lightbulbs at Sylvania (blog)
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