Equinox
September 22, 2026 at 7:05 PM by Dr. Drang
The episode of The West Wing that’s always bothered me is “Evidence of Things Not Seen,” which is Episode 20 of Season 4. It takes place on the day of the equinox (in March, not September, but I remembered it because today is an equinox), and one of the continuing subplots is C.J. trying to convince the others that you can stand an egg on its end at the exact moment of the equinox and only at that moment. Oh, and it has to be the vernal equinox, not the autumnal one.1
That someone in the glorious Bartlet White House believes in nonsense isn’t what bothers me. Lots of smart people believe silly things. What’s wrong is that it’s C.J., the primary female character, who believes in superstition while the men around her are pooh-poohing it. I’m sure plenty of women will tell me that’s par for the course for Aaron Sorkin, but it still bothers me.
There are two small counters to the general sexism of the egg subplot. First, the men who tell C.J. she’s full of it are themselves wrong. They think you can’t balance an egg on its end, even though it’s not really that hard.
This photo was taken today (yes, on the equinox but not the vernal equinox and not at the exact moment) on my back patio. I didn’t do any tricks like slightly crack the shell or put it on a bit of salt and then blow the salt away. I just kept adjusting its position again and again until it stood. The plain fact is that it just takes a little time to balance an egg on its end, time that most people aren’t willing to spend. (And yes, it helps to have a rough surface.)
The second counter is that Jed seems willing to believe the egg story. He doesn’t defend C.J., but he does try to stand an egg on end in his office. In some ways, this is worse. For all his faults, Jed is supposed to know at least a bit about science. Remember the episode in which C.J. has to remind him to let the NASA experts handle the science questions coming in from schoolkids? If anyone should be instantly dismissive of the standing egg myth, it should be Jed.
At the very end of the show, C.J.’s alone and manages to balance an egg on its end, justifying her faith. The title comes from Hebrews 11:1, which she recites earlier in the episode. I guess this is supposed to get us to think that she hasn’t been spouting nonsense all this time, but what it really means is that she can do what anyone can do if they take their time.
What bothers me the most is the setup for her balancing act. Before trying, she looks pointedly at the clock, which shows midnight. Recall that the balancing is supposed to work only at the exact moment of the equinox. Does Sorkin think equinoxes always occur at midnight? Does he think the audience is dumb enough to believe that? The episode aired in April 2003, so I guess its events take place on March 20 of that year. In Washington, the 2003 vernal equinox occurred at about 8:00 pm, not four hours later. Was the show set a year or two earlier? No midnight spring equinoxes those years, either.
If you’re interested in the history of the egg balancing myth, Martin Gardner wrote an article about it in 1996. You can see the text on the Wayback Machine.
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No one ever asks whether the egg balancing would work if they were in Buenos Aires instead of Washington. ↩