# Please explain Foucault's Pendulum to me

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-foucaults-pendulum-to-me/414209>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [August 2, 2007, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-foucaults-pendulum-to-me/414209 "2007-08-02T23:23:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2007, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-foucaults-pendulum-to-me/414209/21 "2007-08-03T20:01:13Z")

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[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist]  
Just kind of making my way, the only way I know how…  
[/QUOTE]

But that’s just a little bit more than the law will allow?

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**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2007, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-foucaults-pendulum-to-me/414209/22 "2007-08-03T20:08:47Z")

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[QUOTE=Miller]  
But that’s just a little bit more than the law will allow?  
[/QUOTE]  
Just a little bit more than the _Illuminati_ will allow!

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**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2007, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-foucaults-pendulum-to-me/414209/23 "2007-08-03T21:24:46Z")

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To add something that I meant to mention in my earlier post: at one point Eco casually drops in what was a non-trivial historical discovery.  
It’s in chapter 94, amidst the wrangling over the origins of _The Protocols of the Elders of Zion_. As had been known and widely discussed more or less since the emergence of the _Protocols_, they are not merely ficticious, but much of the material is recycled in an act of plagiarism (though changing the baddies) from an earlier book by Maurice Joly. But in chapter 94 our heroes note that there’s an earlier source: _Les Mystères du peuple_ by Eugène Sue. Joly was himself a plagiarist.

Eco has subsequently discussed this observation that Joly was nicking from Sue in some of his non-fiction, but as far as I know the novel was the first place it was mentioned in print.

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