Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco

[Bigshift]

Warning: MAY contain spoilers.

Hello, I am looking for the science aspect of Foucault's Pendulum. Could someone who has read the book point me in the right direction?

For example "pages 256 - 300 and pages 453 to 456 etc."

Anything will help and I don't mind spoilers if you wish to include that sort of thing.

[Miller]

What do you mean, "science aspect?"

[WhyNot]

Paper due tomorrow, huh? Good luck with the all-nighter.

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by Miller

What do you mean, "science aspect?"

Yeah, there's not a whole lot of science in this book.

[Maserschmidt]

Originally Posted by WhyNot

Paper due tomorrow, huh? Good luck with the all-nighter.

lol. Got it in one.

[Arnold Winkelried]

Do you mean the "telluric currents" thing? You do realize that our protagonists are just making up stuff for the fun of it.

[Marley23]

I don't remember any science in there. It's not about the actual pendulum.

[Miller]

Also, asking for specific page numbers isn't going to help you, unless you and the person giving you pages happen to have the same edition of the book. The book's over twenty years old, and has gone through God-knows-how-many publications, so good luck with that.

N.B. I was looking at the description of the novel on Wikipedia, trying to refresh my memory of how they used the PC to generate conspiracy theories (thinking that might be what the OP was asking after) and I found this quote:

Asked whether he had read the Brown novel, Eco replied:

I was obliged to read it because everybody was asking me about it. My answer is that Dan Brown is one of the characters in my novel Foucault’s Pendulum, which is about people who start believing in occult stuff.

- But you yourself seem interested in the kabbalah, alchemy and other occult practices explored in the novel.

No. In Foucault’s Pendulum I wrote the grotesque representation of these kind of people. So Dan Brown is one of my creatures.

How can you not love Umberto Eco?

[Beastly Rotter]

Originally Posted by Bigshift

Anything will help and I don't mind spoilers if you wish to include that sort of thing.

The bit where Foucault decapitated the Vampire Illuminatus with his sharpened pendulum was a neat demonstration of the conservation of angular momentum.

[Bigshift]

Originally Posted by WhyNot

Paper due tomorrow, huh? Good luck with the all-nighter.

No, it's due in a few weeks.

Originally Posted by Arnold Winkelried

Do you mean the "telluric currents" thing? You do realize that our protagonists are just making up stuff for the fun of it.

Thank you, i'll do some research on that.

Originally Posted by Marley23

I don't remember any science in there. It's not about the actual pendulum.

Good to know thanks.

Originally Posted by Miller

Also, asking for specific page numbers isn't going to help you, unless you and the person giving you pages happen to have the same edition of the book. The book's over twenty years old, and has gone through God-knows-how-many publications, so good luck with that.

Oh damn it. I didn't think of that. Thanks for the heads up.

Originally Posted by Beastly Rotter

The bit where Foucault decapitated the Vampire Illuminatus with his sharpened pendulum was a neat demonstration of the conservation of angular momentum.

Thank you very much! If anyone else has anything to add, it would be much appreciated.

[Beastly Rotter]

Well, it has been a while since I read it, but when the zombies turn out to be created from the blood of Foucault himself {or, as the Vampire Illuminatus himself puts it}

Leapt unwieldy but full-fashioned,
as Athena sprang from Zeus,
The bifold spiral conjured
From thine dregs of mortal juice

it is a reference to DNA: the "bifold spiral" is the double helix formation revealed by Crick and Watson; the "mortal juice" is of course the hero's own semen, taken by the succubus Lamia when she seduced him beneath the Temple of Solomon. This whole chapter deals with the ethical dilemmas of human cloning, when Kaine creates the Forsaken Army in Foucault's own image.

[Askance]

Originally Posted by Bigshift

No, it's due in a few weeks.

Then, if you'll pardon the vehemence, why not read the friggin' book yourself? Given due diligence it'll take a week, tops.

[WhyNot]

Originally Posted by Askance

Given due diligence it'll take a week, tops.

It's taken me the better part of 10 years.

I'm on the second chapter.


zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........

[Beastly Rotter]

Originally Posted by WhyNot

It's taken me the better part of 10 years.

I'm on the second chapter.


zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........

It gets better when the brain essence extracting starts.

[Tom Scud]

Originally Posted by Beastly Rotter

Well, it has been a while since I read it, but when the zombies turn out to be created from the blood of Foucault himself.

Wasn't the issue there that the nanomachines that granted Foucault effective immortality (and which of course ran in his bloodstream) were specifically tailored to him; when injected into a third party while they maintained only the semblance of life, without higher cognitive function.

ETA:

the "mortal juice" is of course the hero's own semen, taken by the succubus Lamia when she seduced him beneath the Temple of Solomon.

Wasn't that sequence revealed to be a hallucination during the final confrontation in the High Temple of Tlön?

[newcomer]

Originally Posted by Miller

How can you not love Umberto Eco?

That quote is a bomb! Brilliant!

[Evin]

You've got to have a bit of the masochistic Puritan to read this book, but for those of you that haven't, the following sorta captures the essence of the book (and this list?):

"THE DEPARTMENT OF USELESS TECHNIQUES"

''Listen, Jacopo, I thought of a good one: Urban Planning for Gypsies.''

''Great,'' Belbo said admiringly. ''I have one, too: Aztec Equitation.''

''Excellent. But would that go with Potio-section or the Adynata?'' . . . Belbo . . . looked at me, saw my bewilderment. ''Potio-section, as everybody knows, of course, is the art of slicing soup. No, no,'' he said to Diotallevi. ''It's not a department, it's a subject, like Mechanical Avunculogratulation or Pylocatabasis. They all fall under the heading of Tetrapyloctomy. . . . The art of splitting a hair four ways. This is the department of useless techniques. Mechanical Avunculogratulation, for example, is how to build machines for greeting uncles. We're not sure, though, if Pylocatabasis belongs, since it's the art of being saved by a hair. Somehow that doesn't seem completely useless.'' ''All right, gentlemen,'' I said, ''I give up. What are you two talking about?''

''Well, Diotallevi and I are planning a . . . School of Comparative Irrelevance. . . . to turn out scholars capable of endlessly increasing the number of unnecessary subjects. . . . The Tetrapyloctomy department has a preparatory function; its purpose is to inculcate a sense of irrelevance. Another important department is Adynata, or Impossibilia. . . . The essence of the discipline is the comprehension of the underlying reasons for a thing's absurdity. We have courses in Morse syntax, the history of antarctic agriculture, the history of Easter Island painting, contemporary Sumerian literature, Montessori grading, Assyrio-Babylonian philately, the technology of the wheel in pre-Columbian empires, and the phonetics of the silent film. . . . But what courses did we put under Oxymoronics? Oh, yes, here we are: Tradition in Revolution, Democratic Oligarchy, Parmenidean Dynamics, Heraclitean Statics, Spartan Sybaritics, Tautological Dialectics. . . .'' I couldn't resist throwing in ''How about a Grammar of Solecisms?'' ''Excellent!'' they both said, making a note.

[Grey]

Or my favourite bit : cretins, fools, morons and lunatics

“There are four kinds of people in this world: cretins, fools, morons, and lunatics…

Cretins don’t even talk; they sort of slobber and stumble…Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation…

Fools don’t claim that cats bark, but they talk about cats when everyone else is talking about dogs. They offend all the rules of conversation, and when they really offend, they’re magnificent…Morons never do the wrong thing. They get their reasoning wrong. Like the fellow who says that all dogs are pets and all dogs bark, and cats are pets, too, therefore cats bark…

Morons will occasionally say something that’s right, but they say it for the wrong reason…

A lunatic is easily recognized. He is a moron who doesn’t know the ropes. The moron proves his thesis; he has logic, however twisted it may be. The lunatic on the other hand, doesn’t concern himself at all with logic; he works by short circuits. For him, everything proves everything else. The lunatic is all idée fixe, and whatever he comes across confirms his lunacy. You can tell him by the liberties he takes with common sense, by his flashes of inspiration, and by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars…"

[Ogre]

You guys are killing me!

[Marley23]

Originally Posted by Grey

Or my favourite bit : cretins, fools, morons and lunatics

That might qualify as social science. Does that help, Bigshift?

[Mahaloth]

Pages 23-47


For starters. I have no idea.

[Taomist]

I love Eco, I love this thread, I love this board. <3

[Beastly Rotter]

Originally Posted by Tom Scud

Wasn't that sequence revealed to be a hallucination during the final confrontation in the High Temple of Tlön?

I think that was deliberately left ambiguous: how much of it had actually happened, and how much of it was a fragment of Foucault's consciousness still trapped in the Uqbar Simulacrum?

IIRC, the workaround for the nanites not functioning outside of Foucault himself was the effective duplication of his personality in the Simulacrum: the Monks were trying to stop the Vampires installing these denatured Foucaults replicas in the Clockwork Legion, which would have allowed for the creation of an entire army of brass and steel assassins.

The Zeppelin crash put an end to the process, but presumably a remnant of Foucault's consciousness remained within Uqbar, and it may have been that which dreamed the more perfervid sequences; Eco is notorious for his unreliable narrators.

[fiddlesticks]

The Tres Society is monitoring this thread. Tread carefully.

[Tom Scud]

Originally Posted by Beastly Rotter

I think that was deliberately left ambiguous: how much of it had actually happened, and how much of it was a fragment of Foucault's consciousness still trapped in the Uqbar Simulacrum?

TBH, I never really got my head around the sequences in the Simulacrum. You could be right.

But I think we're drifting a bit from the OP's request. Not much of the flashy tech in the story really has much bearing on science as such: the Uqbari biotech is mostly a plot device; Eco could just as well have said "a wizard did it" 95% of the time. And while the sequences navigating the telluric currents aboard the Orbis Tertius were incredibly vivid, they pretty much amounted to "travel by map".

What the OP's prof is probably looking for (which you can see symbolized pretty heavy-handedly in the Clockwork Legion's mechanistic thought) is Eco's contention that scientific progress depends on intuitive leaps, and that this progress is threatened by excessive pedantry. Besides the Legion, this comes through most clearly in

Oh, man talk about a spoiler

OP, really, you should read the book, because this is one of the great moments of 20th century literature and it's so much better to come across it cold

SPOILER:

Diotallevi's speech to Foucault in which he reveals that he and Belbo have been working for the Comte right along. Obviously, Diotallevi is a villain, but he's clearly speaking for the author. And Foucault's inability to intuit that he was at the center of a scheme almost cost him and the world everything.

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by Beastly Rotter

it is a reference to DNA: the "bifold spiral" is the double helix formation revealed by Crick and Watson; the "mortal juice" is of course the hero's own semen, taken by the succubus Lamia when she seduced him beneath the Temple of Solomon. This whole chapter deals with the ethical dilemmas of human cloning, when Kaine creates the Forsaken Army in Foucault's own image.

Incidentally, this book is what inspired my username. It's one of my favorites, although I'd advise most people to just skip the ENDLESS sequence about Nikola Tesla's supposed death ray. It seems like it's going to be important later, and then it totally isn't.

[Beastly Rotter]

Yeah, that double-cross was really well-executed by Eco; it took me by surprise. I liked Diotallevi as a character, but I think he was too much of a vehicle for the author's polemics about the epistemology of science. When they have crashed the Orbis Tertius in the Garden of Forking Paths and are huddled at the back of the hull with the lights of the Cthonosphere flickering above and casting shadows on the wall behind it's a really evocative passage, almost ruined by Diotallevi's undergraduate lecture about Plato and the Allegory of the Cave and the limitations of empiricism: you just want to yell, "Dude, there are BIG FUCKING ROBOTS outside."

[Beastly Rotter]

Originally Posted by Lamia

Incidentally, this book is what inspired my username. It's one of my favorites, although I'd advise most people to just skip the ENDLESS sequence about Nikola Tesla's supposed death ray. It seems like it's going to be important later, and then it totally isn't.

I liked Lamia a lot as a character, I think she was quite a neat tie in to Poe and To Science:

Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.

I think having Poe as an actual character was over-egging the pudding though, even if he was only a shade {very subtle, Eco} within the Simulacrum himself.

[Tom Scud]

So were you as pissed as I was about THE ISLAND OF THE DAY BEFORE? The whole time-travel thing was so, so played-out, of course, but mainly what the hell did he do to Belbo? For the first two-thirds I was expecting to find out that Foucault had literally had his personality erased because it was the only way he could trust him, but no, I guess Eco just got bored with him.

Such a disappointment.

[Beastly Rotter]

Originally Posted by Tom Scud

So were you as pissed as I was about THE ISLAND OF THE DAY BEFORE? The whole time-travel thing was so, so played-out, of course, but mainly what the hell did he do to Belbo? For the first two-thirds I was expecting to find out that Foucault had literally had his personality erased because it was the only way he could trust him, but no, I guess Eco just got bored with him.

Such a disappointment.

I think that the whole idea of having "save points" in your life so you could reload to an earlier point if you didn't like the results of a decision was a nifty one, but undermined by being far too literal: Casaubon just kept on endlessly revisiting yesterday in an attempt to create the perfect day, but rather than making substantive choices he simply dithered over his choice of tie.

Maybe that was just a sendup of his dry pedantry, but yeah, I got the feeling that Eco had lost control of his characterisation by then. The Bandersnatch Chrononauts were pretty cool, though, even if they were just an excuse for the temporal duel between Lewis Carroll and H G Wells.

[Slow Moving Vehicle]

Originally Posted by Askance

Then, if you'll pardon the vehemence, why not read the friggin' book yourself? Given due diligence it'll take a week, tops.

Oh, come on. This is one of my very favorite books, and has helped shape a lot of my personal worldview - it's why I actually get angry at conspiracy theories, especially if they involve the Illuminati or the Knights Templar* - but you gotta admit, it's a bit dense. Especially the opening Causabon-hiding-in-the-Conservatoire chapter.

*But not the Tres. You don't fuck with the Tres.

[Autolycus]

One of my favorite parts was where Foucault showed how a human holding a pendulum can defy the laws of physics. Even without exerting any energy, it's impossible for a human to get a pendulum to stay completely still. The narrator uses this to great effect to solve the mystery of the Templar statue.

[enigmatic]

I don't remember any science in there. It's not about the actual pendulum.

While this is true, and while the eventual theme of the work is that science should be rejected in favour of mysticism, the impressive thing is the authors own grasp of it.

I mean, for an Elizabethan author, Eco does an amazing job of predicting modern technology, and how it fits into society.

Just look at all the stuff about computers!

[Maserschmidt]

Originally Posted by Beastly Rotter

The Bandersnatch Chrononauts were pretty cool, though, even if they were just an excuse for the temporal duel between Lewis Carroll and H G Wells.

While some of the symbolism in the "Second Denouement" section was a little murky to me, I thought that giving both of these famous guys beards (when neither had one) was a brilliant double-entendre reference to Walt Whitman's brief appearance earlier in the time-travel sequences. Every line in that book contains hidden meanings.

[catnoe]

I read the book when it came out in the early 90's? Now I'm going to have to read it again, so much mentioned that I don't remember.

[Beastly Rotter]

Originally Posted by catnoe

I read the book when it came out in the early 90's? Now I'm going to have to read it again, so much mentioned that I don't remember.

I do hope the OP is paying attention, too.

[Bridget Burke]

I thought the book was a takeoff on occult conspiracy stuff. Kind of a more intellectual Illuminatus Trilogy--with less sex & drugs....

[Chelonaut]

I love this book! I especially like Eco's take on the old 'Who painted the Mona Lisa´conspiracy woo. It's a whole musical chairs of forged attribution of renaissance masterpieces. Michelangelo painted the Mona and all Leonardo's other paintings while Leonardo designed war-machines, no not the failed ones you know about, secret ones that worked! (Eco hints that the elaborate Nazi raid on the tower of London was how they got the plans for the Tiger Tank!)

Since Michelangelo thus had no time to make the Sistine chapel, that was all done by Raphael. Raphael's work was really done by Albrecht Durer and somebody I don't remember did HIS paintings and drawings.

The OP might as well not read Pendulum, I think this thread sums up all the major points :-).

[Slow Moving Vehicle]

Originally Posted by Beastly Rotter

I do hope the OP is paying attention, too.

Yes, it would be a real shame if he misinterpreted Belbo's eloquent disquisition on the Young Fool, and the alchemical importance of extracting the aqua aureate (lit "water of gold").

[capybara]

I love this thread. What a great book. If the OP wanted to work in biology, could look at the part in Bologna at the uni where Diotalevi and the pinball-machine-chick have the mock-debate with he long-horse specialist; or in physics, that part at Milan-Malpensa with the treadmill.

[Chronos]

A serious question: Is the entire book written from the point of view of the crazy guy? I've only gotten a few chapters in, and getting inside that guy's head is already tiring.

And no, I don't have any assignment on the book-- I'm just curious because I enjoyed The Name of the Rose, and Focault's Pendulum comes highly recommended.

[Slow Moving Vehicle]

Originally Posted by Chronos

A serious question: Is the entire book written from the point of view of the crazy guy? I've only gotten a few chapters in, and getting inside that guy's head is already tiring.

And no, I don't have any assignment on the book-- I'm just curious because I enjoyed The Name of the Rose, and Focault's Pendulum comes highly recommended.

Yes, Causabon is the narrator of the whole book. And once you get past him hiding in the Conservatoire, and he starts describing his first meetings with Belbo and Diotallevi, it gets a bit easier to follow. The beginning of the book is actually the end of the story, and by then, Causabon's grip on reality is a bit shaky. The only real difficulty of the main expository section of the novel is all the scholarly references and allusions. But it's definitely worth sticking with.

[Chronos]

And once you get past him hiding in the Conservatoire, and he starts describing his first meetings with Belbo and Diotallevi, it gets a bit easier to follow. The beginning of the book is actually the end of the story, and by then, Causabon's grip on reality is a bit shaky.

Yeah, I gathered that it was out of sequence like that, but I'm already past the Conservatoire part, and the crazy is still enough to be distracting.

[Rhythmdvl]

Before this thread dies, could someone give me a good rundown of the science behind Huxley's The Island?

[drbhoneydew]

Originally Posted by Slow Moving Vehicle

The only real difficulty of the main expository section of the novel is all the scholarly references and allusions. But it's definitely worth sticking with.

That's what makes me keep going back to it every so often - chances are I've read something that unwraps another batch of them. Eco's books are usually phenomenally hard going on the first read but boy do they keep on giving.

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by Chronos

A serious question: Is the entire book written from the point of view of the crazy guy? I've only gotten a few chapters in, and getting inside that guy's head is already tiring.

Originally Posted by Chronos

Yeah, I gathered that it was out of sequence like that, but I'm already past the Conservatoire part, and the crazy is still enough to be distracting.

I've read this book 4-5 times, although not for a couple of years, and I don't recall the narrator seeming crazy for most of the book. I just thumbed through my copy, and by the third chapter things are (for an Eco novel) fairly straightforward. It sounds to me like you just don't like the writing style.

[Tom Scud]

Originally Posted by Lamia

I've read this book 4-5 times, although not for a couple of years, and I don't recall the narrator seeming crazy for most of the book. I just thumbed through my copy, and by the third chapter things are (for an Eco novel) fairly straightforward. It sounds to me like you just don't like the writing style.

There's some odd stuff in South America, as I recall. If you get to the discussion of pinball playing & the publication company and are still not liking it, it's probably time to give up.

[Lamia]

Originally Posted by Tom Scud

There's some odd stuff in South America, as I recall. If you get to the discussion of pinball playing & the publication company and are still not liking it, it's probably time to give up.

There is odd stuff in the South American section, but nothing I recall as being obviously crazy. In light of things that happen later one might question whether everything described in this section really happened as described, but IIRC everything is at least within the realm of plausibility. Fairly minor spoiler:

SPOILER:

At one point the narrator and his girlfriend attend a voodoo ritual, and the girlfriend falls into a trance and starts shaking or dancing around or something. When she comes out of it she's extremely embarrassed. The reader is not asked to believe that she was really possessed by a spirit though, and IIRC the narrator doesn't seem to think that's what happened either.

[GargoyleWB]

What, there are cool things like vampires, zombies, and brain extractors in this book? I could never get past the first couple of chapters of thinly veiled authorial narcissism prattling on and on about the chores of editing and word processing and the horrible burdensome life that writers lead

But if there are Illuminati nosferatu zombie priests, then I'll give the book another shot.

[foolsguinea]

What if they're really just a ploddingly done metaphor for book editors?