Abstract
This article focuses on the news coverage given to the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) announcement that neutrinos might exceed the speed of light, flying in the face of Albert Einstein’s theory. By studying 140 cartoons about the news item published between the CERN’s announcement at the end of September 2011 up until its refutation in February 2012, we selected 33 devoted to Albert Einstein. We study the iconographic use of Einstein’s figure, and how the suggestion he might have been wrong stirred up greater interest among the cartoonists than when it was proven his ideas are still fully in force.
In 1956, Charles Percy Snow coined the term The Two Cultures, referring to the distance separating the scientific and the humanistic worlds (Snow, 1956, 1959). This more or less old-fashioned term (Van Dijck, 2003) has been very useful to define the lack of communication existing between the literary world and the scientific world (Gregory & Miller, 1998; Hultberg, 1997). The distancing between these two groups is clearly shown in the relationship of the mass media with scientists and researchers (Nelkin, 1987; Valenti, 1999). Although journalists follow a criterion of objectivity, and this is modeled on the scientific method (Nelkin, 1987) more often than not, when it comes to dealing with scientific news items an important conflict of interests arises. Scientists accuse journalists of treating science thoughtlessly and frivolously, of portraying it as a show or as magic, of transforming a provisional discovery into a certainty and minimizing uncertainties, of taking science and the scientific discourse out of context, and of looking for sensationalism and creating misinformation (Bubela et al., 2009; Gascoigne & Metcalfe, 1997; Peters, 1995; Shortland & Gregory, 1991). On the other hand, journalists accuse scientists of being too technical and boring when it comes to explaining their results, of being excessively preoccupied with the rigor of the concept and the precision of information (Dean, 2009), or even of treating them arrogantly and patronizingly (Amend & Secko, 2012; Bensaude-Vincent, 2000).
The aim of this article is to show from this perspective the media impact that the announcement of some apparently extraordinary results presented by the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), located in Geneva, had, and more specifically, how this discovery was depicted in cartoons. On September 21, 2011, the mass media were informed of the results of an experiment, which, were they true, would change the understanding of contemporary physics. The research, carried out by the team working in Opera (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus), showed that neutrinos (uncharged elementary particles of very small mass) travel 60 nanoseconds over the cosmic speed limit. Researchers at the CERN were quick to realize that if the data were proven to be correct, Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity, postulated in 1905, would be questioned, and it could be possible to time travel to the past. However, a great part of the scientific community was skeptical and thought that there must have been some miscalculation. To find possible mistakes, in November 2011, the experiment was carried out once again, and the results were the same—neutrinos turned out to be faster than light. Nevertheless, and in spite of the anticipation created by the second running of the test, researchers from the CERN and the National Laboratory of Gran Sasso (in the Apennines, where the speed metering of neutrinos was carried out) urged caution while the results were checked. At last, on February 22, 2012, new data that questioned the results were given. These pointed to a poor connection of the optical fiber between a GPS (global positioning system) reception unit and an input/output card from a computer as responsible for neutrinos seeming faster than light.
Cartoons are an important element for the analysis of social reality (Caswell, 2004; Powell & Paton, 1988; Thibodeau, 1989), and they differ from editorials, columns, or reviews in that they primarily use visual language and aphoristic and judgmental sentences (Hempelmann & Samson, 2008). In the same way, the contrast existing between scientific thought and cultural interpretation gives rise to many jokes and satires (Davies, 1998), and in this sense, the humor of cartoons is especially important when it comes to assessing the reception of a scientific news item in relation to the sociocultural reality of a country (Domínguez & Mateu, 2012). At the same time, cartoons are very helpful to introduce new metaphors to public opinion and thus to popularize and structure new concepts (Bounegru & Forceville, 2011; El Refaie, 2003). That is why their study is very useful when dealing with high-level scientific topics, particularly the most polemic and controversial ones (Nelkin & Lindee, 1995). Therefore, the present article aims to find answers to the following questions: Up to what point did the possibility of Albert Einstein being wrong have a humorous implication? And did it have a similar impact when the error in the data was revealed, showing therefore the full validity of his hypothesis? Does a sensationalistic coverage of the news show the conflict between the interests of scientists and of journalists, and therefore between the two cultures?
Method
To carry out this work, we have studied cartoons that appeared in the mass media, in print, and online, between the CERN’s announcement at the end of September 2011 until the end of March 2012. We monitored main Internet servers weekly (Google and Yahoo), sorting the cartoons according to language and nationality. To carry out our research we introduced in the research engine the keywords “neutrino,” “CERN,” and “cartoon” in five different languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German), and we used the last week filter so as to avoid older cartoons, thus narrowing down our results. In this respect, we have included cartoons appearing in cartoonists’ blogs as we considered them to be representative (Giarelli & Tulman, 2003). Consulted websites were Cartoonstock, Cartoonmovement, Toonpool, Cartoonistgroup, Caglecartoons, Cartoons Courier International, and British Cartoons Archive and also the leading newspapers from Europe and North America (La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera, Le Monde, Le Figaro, The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Huffington Post, El País, El Mundo, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Washington Examiner).
Results and Discussion
We collected a total of 140 cartoons on neutrinos, 111 of which were published before the CERN’s denial and 29 after it. Of them 33 cartoons were devoted to Albert Einstein (see Table 1). 1 The powerful iconography of Einstein, without a doubt the most popular scientist in the 20th century and one of the most well-known in history, was an attraction to cartoonists. The possibility of him being wrong motivated a great deal of the cartoon corpus developed around the news of the speed of neutrinos. Therefore, from the first moment, a link was made between Einstein’s figure and these atomic particles, a confrontation that could be summarized in the formula Einstein versus neutrinos. Although, as it has already been pointed out, the scientists from the CERN were very cautious with their results and a great part of the scientific community doubted them, cartoonists supported the idea that Einstein might have been wrong. The possibility of Einstein losing the battle against something as abstract as a neutrino was highly profitable as a comic resource, and there were no remarkable differences between languages or nationalities.
Cartoons About Albert Einstein Published During September 2011 and March 2012.
Accordingly, in the cartoons we can see a sad Einstein, who looks at the neutrino (a small dot in front of him) with grief (Bucnic); or with a hat in the shape of a donkey (Deligne; Figure 1A); or with the formula E = MO2(?), meaning “MO” in Italian slang “What now”; or sticking his tongue out and at the same time a group of scientists from the CERN sticking their tongues out behind his back (Burki; Figure 1B). His identifying features are emphasized—his hair is shown so untidy in Tomas’s cartoon, where he is reading a piece of news that says “Neutrino faster than light,” that a woman replies alarmed, “You look as though you’ve been dragged through a Large Hadron Collider backwards.” A downcast Einstein is shown, doubting his formula (Javad; Figure 1C) or completely depressed, as in Keith Tucker’s joke: “Einstein, you look depressed. What’s wrong?” “I lost everything betting on the neutrino races!”
(A) Frédéric Deligne “Einstein a tort”(“Einstein was wrong”); (B) Raymond Burki “Des neutrinos en excès de vitesse” (“Neutrinos exceed the speed limits”); (C) Javad Alizadeh “E = mc?”
The possibility that Einstein might have been mistaken also opens the debate about the reliability of science. The cartoonist Maki draws a journalist, microphone in hand, excited about the news: It’s chaos here in downtown Manhattan, where a Wall Street Journal op-ed column has finally sealed the Climate Change Debate. In a moment of unmatched clarity Robert Bryce put two and two together, coming to the logical conclusion that if Einstein can be wrong, clearly the rest of scientific knowledge is up for grabs!
Instead of considering a victory for science the constant revision of its laws, it is presented to the wider public as a weakness and that therefore we should not attach importance to any scientific result. If Einstein could be wrong, then all scientists are alike, as in the cartoon by James Whitworth, where a child explains to an adult: “My teacher says my test reminds him of Einstein . . . could do better.”
Professor Antonino Zichichi, a pioneer in Italian nuclear energy, a former president of the European Physical Society, and a very influential and popular person in Italy, made some statements in which he affirmed that Einstein lived in delusion, thinking he had understood everything. 2 This fact explains Tomas’s cartoon, in which we can see Zichichi’s face and a sign that says: “What a neutrino . . . Actually, what science has discovered is that the only thing that exceeds the speed of light are cockroaches . . . In fact, they disappear before turning the lights on.” Einstein’s image is taken as a joke, as in the satirical magazine Stivalebucato, with a fake cover of Science and a picture of him and a sign saying: “Oops! My neutrino has escaped. Pasta e fagioli [pasta with beans] are to blame.” Finally, the cartoonist Ryal draws Einstein defending his formula E = mc2 in front of a group of antisystem youngsters carrying a Palestinian flag, and one of them says: “Another authoritative statement from a Zionist among many.” This is the only cartoon in this study that refers to Einstein’s ethnicity.
After the CERN’s refutation, cartoonists paid less attention to the news: only 29 cartoons of the 140, and from them just 10 were devoted to Albert Einstein. In these we see a defiant Einstein, sticking his tongue out and with the sign “Errata corrige” (“Correct your errors”), driving a sports car at a high speed (Mauro Biani), or roaring with laughter, next to a puzzled Isaac Newton. Einstein is represented as the winner of the battle, even urging caution for himself, maybe to avoid himself from saying everything he is thinking (Mario Bochicchio). The titles of some of the cartoons are also indicators of the confrontation: “Einstein no se rinde” (“Einstein won’t give up”; Tropea), “Einstein vs. neutrino: 1-0” (Mauro Biani), or “Enemies of Science Can Stop Gloating About the Fast Neutrinos” (Faye Flam and Tony Auth).
These cartoons show the great impact the announcement made by the CERN had on the mass media and how the image of Albert Einstein has been used as an attraction to pay attention to this item of scientific news. The possibility that Einstein might have been wrong has spurred the imagination of cartoonists, crossing out the equation E = mc2, writing E = mn2 (where “n” equals neutrino speed), depicting him with donkey ears (or calling him donkey straightforwardly, as Deligne does) or sticking out his tongue. He has been greatly caricatured, his physical features exaggerated, uttering nonsense and absurd sentences.
Streicher (1967) emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between caricatures and cartoons, but in this case it is difficult to clearly separate both terms—Einstein is always depicted with his untidy hair, his thick moustache, and a big nose and proclaiming absurd statements. From 33 cartoons analyzed in this study, Einstein is more or less mocked in 23. The use of his figure as a referential icon of science is obvious, and the possibility that he might have been wrong brought about many cartoons. Some of them explicitly state “Einstein was wrong” (Adelaide Cole, Deligne) or “Einstein se retourne dans sa tombe” (“Einstein turns over in his grave”), as “Kabe” does.
In turn, after the CERN’s refutation, cartoonists paid a lot less attention to the new piece of news. If 23 cartoons announced that Einstein was wrong, only 10 announced the contrary, that is, that his theses were still fully validated. The mass media has distorted the image of the scientist, showing him defeated and downcast, when in reality the final results show otherwise and, certainly, after the new tests his work has been reinforced. In the same way, some of these cartoons mock the scientists from the CERN—in one of them Einstein is sticking out his tongue and saying that not all scientists are “des lumières” (a wordplay referring to “lights” and “geniuses”; Morier). This way, the researchers’ activity is discredited, not valuing that the scientific method is grounded precisely on the constant revision of its results.
It is a fact that given their nature, cartoons tend toward exaggeration and sharpness and are prone to judging, missing many details (Tsakona, 2009). All these cartoons have certainly helped popularize this news item, making science fun and closer to people. But in many cases, they also show the little understanding cartoonists have of how science works. As Gascoigne and Metcalfe (1997) have pointed out, many scientists think that “the media trivialize and distort science,” and the journalistic approach to this news item in cartoons has not helped improve this perception. The way general journalists have dealt with the topic has not helped either—it was usual to find headlines on neutrinos’ superluminal velocity that used Albert Einstein’s name as an appeal, sometimes even writing clearly sensationalistic phrases and exploiting Einstein’s iconography. 3
Therefore, a criticism of humor is particularly relevant and necessary for the relationship between science and the mass media, not only because the humor practiced by scientists is much more subtle and elaborate (Mulkay & Nigel, 1982) but also to avoid a frivolous and distorted vision of science being projected on society. In this sense, this article has been useful to test the disproportion existing between the presentation of a possible error of Einstein’s and its later denial.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the many cartoonists who have sent us their jokes or have helped clarifying some concepts that were doubtful for me. I want to thank Fabrizzio Azzaroni, Marc Bilgrey, Raymond Burki, Luigi Capelli, Valentino Ciriaco, Frédéric Deligne, Eriadan, Riber Hansson, Javad, Nick Kim, Robert Middelton, Maki Naro, Stephan Schmitz, Keith Tucker, Luis Pastor, and Pierfrancesco Uva for their collaboration. I am also indebted to Tamar Arenas, Anna Mateu, Tatiana Pina, Azahara Rubio, and Andrea Torres, for their help in the production of this article, and to Maria Josep Borràs, for her bibliographic advice. Finally, I would like to thank Susanna Priest for her very helpful comments during the development of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.