Yes, and my point is that not only is there no such scholarly discipline, but that the character’s teaching and research as described in the book would fall under Art History (not Semiotics, which would seem to be the closest thing to “Symbology”). Dan Brown apparently didn’t think “Professor of Art History” sounded cool enough and so just made something up.
…and so succeeded in thinking up the dumbest professorial title ever. Symbology is such a stupid word, it makes my eyes hurt.
I’m guessing his parents just answer questions about their son with “he’s a teacher” and leave it at that.
I’m trying to decide if there’s a more useless specialization than “professor of symbology”. It’s somewhere between “opera critic” and “Andy Dick” in the list of "people to be sure to give bunker space for rebuilding the world after the zombies attack.
Yeah, I remember seeing the word “Boson” somewhere in the CERN labs, I think on one of the computers, though I don’t think they ever mentioned it in dialogue.
Speaking of lab coats and how scientists dress, in the book, rather than finding the body herself, the girl learned of her father’s death from Robert Langdon and the head of Cern (who was not in the film) as she returned by helicopter from a diving trip. She was thus dressed very scantily. She and Langdon had to rush from there to the Vatican immediately. So we had this scantily clad babe running around the Vatican in the book. 
Meh. Nobody would have noticed unless she looked like an altar boy.
Useless? Man, with all the things Langdon has done and will do in the next book?
Far from useless 
What’s the symbology behind lab coats?
Not really. I suppose technically he stopped the Vatican from blowing up— but then if he hadn’t the Substitute Pope would have as part of his evil cunning scheme, so the only real accomplishment was he kept the world from having the first Pope in history who would have looked good nekkid.
In DaV Code he proved that a woman who’s alive today is the direct descendant of a woman who lived 2000 years, but then… so is every other person on Earth.
Technically, Langdon barely stopped Substitute Pope from becoming the real Pope. Richter was the one who took the time time to figure it out–by not racing around Rome like a douchebag. If it wasn’t for the fact that there just happened to be security cameras installed in the Pope’s office, Langdon would have been the guy in the front row, applauding Pope Ewan.
Actually, in the book they do point out that Substitute Pope really was Real Pope for however many minutes until he died. They go into a bit more about becoming pope by acclamation or whatever it’s called that they mentioned ever so briefly in the movie. Apparently, if a large number of people say you’re pope, then you’re pope, and so the crowd proclaiming his supposed miracle and shouting his name was good enough. I wonder if that’s a real rule, in real life.
I’ve read that in the Middle Ages Popes were chosen by chance to make sure it was the will of God. A special type of candy was made in the kitchens of the Vatican and they were distributed all over the Catholic world, all wrapped in paper with the Papal seal. Five (5) of the candies pieces of gold beat into the shape of a ticket, and the five who received those were brought to the Vatican where they would be given a special tour, a lifetime supply of indulgences, listen to singing from the Oompius Lumpius choir and at the end one of the day one would get the position of Pope.
Though I can’t provide a cite.
In the movie, they said the acclaimed one has to be physically in the room during the acclamation, which is why they went and got Popewannabe Ewan from the ER – only to greet him with stony glares when he actually got there.
Yes, I know, but they glossed over it rather quickly. In the book, it was not pointed out that Ewan had actually been pope until after his death. It was, in fact, how the book ended, with the goofy BBC reporter (who also did not make it into the movie) interviewing an American Vatican/pope history expert who happened to be out in the crowd. He explained that.
Actually, in the book, they did not say he had to be in the room. They seem to have invented that specifically for the movie.
No, wait. Or did the book end with the girl about to practice some yoga moves on Robert Langdon? One or the other.
They symbolize that the people wearing them are scientists.
Of course, most of the physicists I’ve known have dressed for comfort and/or to suit their often idiosyncratic personal tastes rather than for symbolic value.