# Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 22, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557 "2012-03-22T23:40:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Bigshift](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bigshift)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/1 "2012-03-22T23:40:18Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/2 "2012-03-23T00:18:59Z")
What do you mean, “science aspect?”
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/3 "2012-03-23T00:28:34Z")
Paper due tomorrow, huh? Good luck with the all-nighter.
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/4 "2012-03-23T00:34:40Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> What do you mean, “science aspect?”
Yeah, there’s not a whole lot of science in this book.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/5 "2012-03-23T00:40:58Z")
> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> Paper due tomorrow, huh? Good luck with the all-nighter.
lol. Got it in one.
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/6 "2012-03-23T00:44:59Z")
Do you mean the “telluric currents” thing? You do realize that our protagonists are just making up stuff for the fun of it.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/7 "2012-03-23T00:47:55Z")
I don’t remember any science in there. It’s not about the actual pendulum.
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/8 "2012-03-23T01:01:48Z")
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?
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### Author:  [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/9 "2012-03-23T01:08:15Z")
> [@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.
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### Author:  [@Bigshift](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bigshift)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/10 "2012-03-23T02:43:37Z")
> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> Paper due tomorrow, huh? Good luck with the all-nighter.
No, it’s due in a few weeks.
> [@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.
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I don’t remember any science in there. It’s not about the actual pendulum.
Good to know thanks.
> [@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.
> [@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.
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### Author:  [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/11 "2012-03-23T04:22:13Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/12 "2012-03-23T04:37:55Z")
> [@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.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/13 "2012-03-23T09:27:42Z")
> [@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…
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### Author:  [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/14 "2012-03-23T09:50:14Z")
> [@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.
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/15 "2012-03-23T12:42:09Z")
> [@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?
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### Author:  [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/16 "2012-03-23T12:47:29Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> How can you not love Umberto Eco?
That quote is a bomb! Brilliant!
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### Author:  [@Evin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evin)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/17 "2012-03-23T15:31:17Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/18 "2012-03-23T16:44:48Z")
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…"
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### Author:  [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/19 "2012-03-23T16:56:48Z")
😃 You guys are killing me!
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2012, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foucaults-pendulum-by-umberto-eco/616557/20 "2012-03-23T17:08:25Z")
> [@Grey](#):
>
> Or my favourite bit : cretins, fools, morons and lunatics
That might qualify as social science. Does that help, **Bigshift**?
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