Evaluating Angels and Demons: As based on Facts
Dan Brown begins his novel (as he does The Da Vinci Code) claiming
that major elements in the story are factual. For Angels and Demons, the
claims surround anti-matter, CERN, The Illuminati, and historical locations in
Rome.
This instantly adds intrigue, credibility, and importance to the story. And
no-one can deny that the story is indeed based on facts at a superficial level.
For example, anti-matter is real, and the CERN research facility in Switzerland
(and France) is real. But a thorough evaluation shows that many of the
secondary details in the story are inaccurate. For example, the description of
anti-matter on the very first page is poor in several respects (e.g. the energy
released during the annihilation of 1 gram of anti-matter is off by a factor of
two; it would be double that of the Hiroshima bomb blast. )
Because of the sheer number of technical inaccuracies in the story - many of
which are easy to research - it seems likely that Dan Brown included them
simply to spice up the plot, and they are not intended to be scrutinized in
detail. Nevertheless, for those who are curious, what follows is a discussion of
the technical claims in the story.
The central scientific concepts in the story are related to: anti-matter,
the relation of energy and matter through Einstein's E = mc2, the
Big Bang where time (t) = 0, and the 'God Particle.'
The
main historical elements in the story are: Galileo founded The Illuminati, the
subsequent ‘Purga’ of 1668 that radicalized this secret society, and the
perpetual conflict between science and religion.
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| Contributed by: Adrian Wyard
|
