Our Friend the Atom: An Imagery Analysis of Disney’s Science Book

In this article, we analyze images from the book “Our Friend the Atom,” written by the astrophysicist Heinz Haber in 1957 and developed in the Disney Science Department. In addition to analyzing the work, we investigate its relevance for science education. After the US attack on two Japanese cities with atomic bombs, there was a severance of opinions on nuclear technologies. On one side, it had an association with the destruction arising from the war. On the other, a narrative highlighted the advantages of using nuclear power for developments that would benefit humanity. Haber and Disney’s book aim to explain how such power works and supports its use for the good, despite the danger of destruction. Our goal is to contextualize the book’s content and its visual imagery and identify aspects to contribute to the science curriculum. We summarized the historical elements of the post-war period and Walt Disney’s entertainment approach and political stance. We discuss how it made a dialogue between a scientific concept and the general public through the book. For the matter of this article, we chose to examine one of the figures in the book, which represents through an illustration how chain reactions work to generate atomic power. For such, we followed a four-step methodology proposed by Silva and Neves Em Aberto, 31(103). (2018) to achieve an imagery analysis, giving us an understanding of the visual language contained in the book. It considers its visual choices, as shapes and colors, content, relations that involve the image, and interpretation of the picture as a whole by the reader. We came to understand the book’s importance as scientific literacy was achieved through its illustrations, text, and popularity.