Angels and Demons
- This article is about the book Angels and Demons; for other meanings, please see the articles on angels and demons.
Angels and Demons book cover Angels and Demons (2000) is a mystery novel by Dan Brown, featuring the character Robert Langdon, who is also the principal character of his subsequent, better-known novel The Da Vinci Code. The story involves a conflict between an ancient group, the Illuminati, and the Catholic Church. It is credited with being the first novel to contain ambigrams.
Main characters
- Robert Langdon: Protagonist, symbologist, professor
- Vittoria Vetra: CERN physicist, Leonardo's adopted daughter
- Leonardo Vetra: Murder victim, CERN physicist, priest
- Maximilian Kohler: Director of CERN
- Commander Olivetti: Head of the Swiss Guard
- Captain Elias Rocher: Member of the Swiss Guard; assistant of Commander Olivetti.
- The Hashshashin: Killer hired by the Illuminati
- Carlo Ventresca: Camerlengo (Papal Chamberlain)
- Saverio Cardinal Mortati: Member of the College of Cardinals and participant in the papal election
- Gunther Glick: BBC reporter
- Chinita Macri: Glick's videographer
- Lieutenant Chartrand: Member of the Swiss Guard
Plot
Angels and Demons features Harvard symbologist, Robert Langdon, as he tries to stop the Illuminati, a legendary secret society, from destroying the Vatican City with the newly-discovered power of antimatter.
CERN researcher, Leonardo Vetra, is found murdered in his secured, private quarters at the research facility. On his chest is branded a symbol — the word "Illuminati", formed as an ambigram. After researching the Internet, Director Maximillian Kohler contacts Professor Langdon, an expert on the Illuminati who has written a book on the subject, and requests his assistance in uncovering the murderer.
What Langdon discovers at the murder scene frightens him: the symbol appears to be authentic, and the legendary secret society, long thought to be defunct, seems to have resurfaced. The Illuminati has also appropriated CERN's supply of antimatter, the ultimate weapon, and has its sights on fulfilling a centuries-old dream: to destroy Vatican City.
Time runs short as Langdon and Vetra's adopted daughter, Vittoria, race to stop not only the Vatican's destruction, but to save the life of four cardinals who have been kidnapped by a deadly assassin.
Comparisons to The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code is undoubtedly Dan Brown's breakthrough novel. However, upon close examination, there are founded allegations that The Da Vinci Code was largely based on the formula he evolved in Angels and Demons. Similarities between the two books include the following:
- The male protagonist, Robert Langdon, unravels a trail of mystical, ancient clues which leads to his discovering the truth about a legendary, secret society and its relationship to the Vatican.
- A prologue depicts the assassination of a murder victim, which results in Langdon having to be awakened by a telephone call by the relevant authorities, asking him to offer his assistance in symbology.
- Events take place during the course of not much more than one day, where Langdon is teamed with a beautiful, highly intelligent woman who is closely related to the murder victim.
- The prominent assassin of the book (i.e. the Hassassin in Angels and Demons and Silas in The Da Vinci Code) commits the murders under the impression that he is doing so for an organisation which is apparently involved in but actually framed for the murders (i.e. the Illuminati in Angels and Demons and Opus Dei in The Da Vinci Code).
- At one point along the way, Langdon makes a mistake whilst following the trail of clues and is directed to the wrong place.
- Maximilian Kohler and Bezu Fache are portrayed in such a way that the reader would suspect them to have masterminded the killings until the revelation takes place.
- There are two prominent cripples in the books: Maximilian Kohler and Sir Leigh Teabing. Both use this to their advantage by bringing revolvers to meetings with the camerlengo or Langdon/Niveau, respectively, and escaping metal detectors because of their conditions.
- The mastermind behind the killings turns out to be a salient figure for most of the book, and supposedly against the motives behind the murders. The camerlengo, for example, is thought to be against the existence of the Illuminati, while Sir Leigh Teabing's motives appear to be parallel to those of the Priory of Sion.
- Langdon and the female protagonist end the story with the implication of a sexual relationship.
- In both, a message is written on papyrus based paper. This is later destroyed when the paper comes in contact with water.
Facts and mythology behind the book
The Altars of Science
The Altars of Science consist of four locations, each representing the four elements— earth, wind, fire and water— which are believed to be "the Path of Illumination", a trail to the meeting place of the Illuminati in Rome.
The "altars" were hidden as religious artwork in order to avoid the wrath of the Vatican and secure the secrecy of the Illuminati. The artworks that make up the Four Altars were all sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
Though no one is sure where exactly the meeting place was, there is speculation that it was the famed Castel Sant'Angelo.
Most believe that the artworks are:
The existence of the Altars of Science has been debated among some historians, although evidence of their existence is still visible in Rome today.
Obelisk in Saint Peter's Square, Altar of Air
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Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Altar of Fire
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Fountain of Four Rivers, Altar of Water
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Factual inaccuracies
In spite of the book's claims to realism and accuracy, there are numerous factual inaccuracies in diverse areas, including science and technology, culture, characterization and the geography of Rome. While the book does not specifically say that all its apparently factual statements are true, Brown's assertions regarding his extensive research have led some readers to take his "facts" at face value. Some examples of the novel's factual inaccuracies include:
- Kohler explains GUT is General Unified Theory. Any physicist, let alone the Head of CERN, knows its Grand Unification (or Unified) Theory
- The pilot explains Langdon's nausea is altitude sickeness from flying at 60,000ft. This will come as a surprise to the many Concorde passengers who flew at 60,000ft.
- Langdon asserts incorrectly that Michelangelo designed the outfits for the Swiss Guards, though this is a common misconception.
- It is impossible yet to create a device that would measure the charge remaining in a battery so accurately, that it could show the time remaining to battery exhaust with the precision of 1 second.
- Langdon states at one point that the phrase Novus Ordo Seclorum, found on American currency, translates as "New Secular Order." The correct translation is "New Order of the Ages."
- In a flashback, Langdon recalls a lecture he gave in his Symbology 212 class where he tells his class that "The practice of 'god-eating' — that is, Holy Communion — was borrowed from the Aztecs." It's unclear how this could have occurred, as communion has its roots in the Last Supper (ca. 30 C.E.) and the Aztec civilization did not rise until the 14th century. Even if the Aztecs had been around when the practice of communion began, there is no evidence of contact between Europeans and the inhabitants of Central America at that time. The first clear evidence of European contact with these people occurred after Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492.
- Brown claims that hatha yoga was an ancient Buddhist art. Although influenced by Buddhism, hatha yoga predates Buddhism. It was, and is, a Hindu art.
- Brown states that Winston Churchill was a Roman Catholic. Churchill was an non-observant member of the Church of England. He was not a "pillar of the church" but a "flying buttress". "I support it from the outside."
- In examining the body of the previous Pope, the Swiss Guard simply slide back the marble top of the tomb and they check the tongue of the Pope. In fact, Popes are buried in three (3) nested coffins, which would have made this task somewhat more difficult.
- Langdon recalls "that much of Galileo's legal trouble had begun when he described planetary motion as elliptical. The Vatican exalted the perfection of the circle and insisted that heavenly motion must be only circular." In reality Galileo famously refused to believe in his friend Kepler’s elliptical orbits and Galileo's clash with the Vatican was a result of his support for Heliocentrism, that is claiming that the Earth orbited the Sun and not vice versa.
- The proton is not, as stated in the book, the antiparticle of the electron. The proton is the antiparticle of the antiproton; the electron is the antiparticle of the positron.
- The quarter gram of anti-hydrogen would cause an annihilation reaction to be twice that of the "almost five kilotons" calculated by the head of CERN, because another quarter gram of ordinary matter would also be annihilated.
- Having jumped out of a helicopter seconds before a ten kiloton antimatter annihilation, Mr Langdon would most likely have been vaporised. If not, then the explosion would have propelled him at such a speed that there would be absolutely no chance of his slowing enough to land safely.
- Annihilation of protons and antiprotons would generate energy primarily in the form of 900 MeV gamma rays. These gamma rays would easily penetrate the matter surrounding the bomb and deliver a lethal dose of radiation to any exposed person standing closer than 2-3 km from the point of explosion.
- Rather than being the mature transport system described in the book, the Lockheed Martin X-33 is, in fact, a small unmanned technology-demonstration vehicle. Intercontinental hypersonic spaceplanes are planned, but none exist.
- Dan Brown claims that "Bernini's city-wide cross of obelisks marked the fortress in perfect Illuminati fashion; the cross’s central arm passed directly through the center of the castle’s bridge, dividing it into two equal halves." In fact, neither of the two arms of the cross go through the Castel Sant'Angelo.
- The Hashshashin hired by the novel's villains refers to Christians as playing a critical role in the downfall of his sect. This is inaccurate; the Hashshashin were crippled by invading Mongols when their fortress of Alamut in modern-day Iran was destroyed in 1256.
- The process of creating antimatter described in the book is inaccurate. Instead of colliding two particles moving in opposite directions, CERN smashes protons into a stationary block of copper or iridium.
- It is impossible to create and sustain the densities of antimatter described in the book. Similarly, antimatter could never be used as a source of power. Antimatter has to be created since it is found nowhere on Earth naturally. The amount of energy required to operate the particle accelerator would be far greater than (or, ideally, equal to) the energy the antimatter-matter reaction would produce. Of course, it could well be that Leonardo Vetra's supposed breakthroughs in antimatter technology have transcended these boundaries.
- The novel asserts several non-facts about the process of a Papal conclave. It is suggested that only cardinals may be elected in a conclave. This is not true, any male Roman Catholic may be elected. It is further suggested that four candidates are semi-formally chosen, including a head, to become the candidates for papacy, thus making the Conclave obsolete. This is again not true, though there are papabile, they are not practical definites before the beginning of the conclave. Further, ballots are restricted to two in the morning and two in the evening, each group is burned together. Dan Brown indicates they are burned individually and indicates that more than two may occur in a single evening. The ballots are read out by one cardinal, verified by another, and pierced by a third; the book suggests that a single person does all of these. Also, the book states that the "master of ceremonies" of the conclave cannot be elected; in fact, he can, and he actually was in the 2005 conclave. It also should be noted that the Devil's Advocate has nothing to do with the papal election (but with the process of beatification).
- Robert Langdon incorrectly translates Seraphim as "The Fiery One". In reality, Seraphim is the plural form of Seraph. This is a commonly made error.
- Almost all of the Italian quotations are grammatically and linguistically incorrect e.g. "Spazzare di cappella" would be similar to saying "to sweep of chapel", instead of perhaps "controllare la capella", meaning "check the chapel"
- Arguably the most blatant and central error made in the book concerns the wireless camera which occupies a central role in the search for the antimatter canister. In the book, the canister is supposedly being filmed by a wireless camera and that signal is being displayed on a large screen in St. Peter's square. In order to find this camera, the Swiss Guard needs to shut off every electronic device to and conduct a painstaking search for the camera, which is eventually found, with the canister, deep underground in a labyrinth of tombs beneath the Vatican. There are several problems with this plot line. First, if the wireless camera's signal is being received and the picture displayed in St. Peter's Square, then it would not take more than a few minutes for a trained team of engineers to triangulate the position of the transmission. Indeed, consider the countless movies about World War II clandestine radio operators who could not transmit more than a few minutes at a time so as not to be detected by the counter-intelligence triangulation teams. Here we have a camera that is transmitting for hours. The rule is: if you can receive the signal, it is very easy to find out where it comes from. The other, second and perhaps greater error is the fact that this wireless camera is transmitting from underground. Transmission of a video signal takes a lot a bandwidth and hence must have a relatively high carrier frequency (such as VHF, UHF, or SHF). In the book we are told that we can see the canister's display counting down in seconds in real-time, which means that we are indeed talking about a relatively high bandwidth signal, and hence, the assumption of a high carrier frequency is a good one. Such carrier frequencies cannot penetrate any significant obstacles and hence it is simply impossible for the signal of such a camera to be received if it were transmitting from deep underground. Indeed, it would be virtually impossible to receive a signal from deep underground even if a very low frequency carrier were to have been used. In conclusion, the whole premise of the plot, namely a laborious search for a canister which is being filmed by a wireless camera from deep underground, does not stand the scrutiny of basic radio transmission principles.
- Near the end of the novel, Brown repeats the popular notion that humans only use a small percentage of their brains. In fact, this is a myth. [1] (http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm)
- While in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, Langdon thinks, "Renaissance cathedrals invariably contained multiple chapels, huge cathedrals like Notre Dame having dozens." This leads the reader to believe that the architecture of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris is of the Renaissance period. In fact, Notre Dame is the most famous example of Gothic architecture in the world, which predates the Renaissance period.
External links and references
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