5 o’clock in the morning, the religious iconologist Robert Langdon wakes from a nightmare by a message from the director of CERN, the Conceal European pour la Recherche Nucletaire. His name is Maximilian Kohler. A scientist at the council, Leonardo Vetra, has been killed in a most brutal way. He faxes an image of the naked dead man lying on his back, with his head twisted 180 degrees facing the ground. His stomach has been branded with a mysterious symbol.
Robert instantly recognizes the symbol as the never-seen mark of the ancient cult of the Illuminati. It was a so-called ambigram; it reads the same both ways.Within an hour and a half, Robert has landed at CERN after a Mach 15 flight in their prototype plane, Boeing X-33. He ultimately meets with Maximilian Kohler, and gets a brief tour of CERN as he is guided to the scene of the crime, Leonardo Vetra’s own lab.
Together with Leonardo Vetra’s daughter, the scientist Vittoria Vetra, they go down into Leonardo Vetra’s personal research facility. She lectures them in their recent breakthrough in production of antimatter, a highly unstable material that destructs in a most harmful way when in contact with matter. The barely visible, but extremely destructive antimatter is contained in the exact centre of a transparent canister the size of a tennis ball, suspended in mid-air by magnetism. The storage room supposedly containing an even larger amount of antimatter has apparently been broken into, and the canister is missing.
The ancient Vatican ceremony called conclave occurs every time a Pope dies, with the main objective of selecting a new one, and only a week ago, the recent Pope passed away. Now the four preterits, the cardinals most likely to win the election, have been kidnapped. Simultaneously, a bomb threat featuring the stolen antimatter canister has been issued in Vatican City. The LED screen on the canister displays the amount of time until detonation – 24 hours. A wild hunt through the churches and ancient history of Rome has started. Robert and Vittoria must find the canister before it is too late, or the centre of Christianity will perish.
Robert instantly recognizes the symbol as the never-seen mark of the ancient cult of the Illuminati. It was a so-called ambigram; it reads the same both ways.Within an hour and a half, Robert has landed at CERN after a Mach 15 flight in their prototype plane, Boeing X-33. He ultimately meets with Maximilian Kohler, and gets a brief tour of CERN as he is guided to the scene of the crime, Leonardo Vetra’s own lab.
Together with Leonardo Vetra’s daughter, the scientist Vittoria Vetra, they go down into Leonardo Vetra’s personal research facility. She lectures them in their recent breakthrough in production of antimatter, a highly unstable material that destructs in a most harmful way when in contact with matter. The barely visible, but extremely destructive antimatter is contained in the exact centre of a transparent canister the size of a tennis ball, suspended in mid-air by magnetism. The storage room supposedly containing an even larger amount of antimatter has apparently been broken into, and the canister is missing.
The ancient Vatican ceremony called conclave occurs every time a Pope dies, with the main objective of selecting a new one, and only a week ago, the recent Pope passed away. Now the four preterits, the cardinals most likely to win the election, have been kidnapped. Simultaneously, a bomb threat featuring the stolen antimatter canister has been issued in Vatican City. The LED screen on the canister displays the amount of time until detonation – 24 hours. A wild hunt through the churches and ancient history of Rome has started. Robert and Vittoria must find the canister before it is too late, or the centre of Christianity will perish.
The theme of the book seems to be that science and religion are two sides of the same story. The bible talks about God that created good and evil,a warmth and coldness etc. Everything has an opposite. In the same way, matter is the opposite of anti-matter, and for all we know, there may be solar systems just like ours consisting of antimatter. By creating energy out of nothing, genesis was proved possible, and the extreme energy in all things that can be released in contact with their opposites (matter and antimatter) may be looked upon as a life-force that can’t be equaleda.
It is unclear whether the theme is that science proves God, or that science is God. I my opinion the second one seems the more suitable, although it seems the author backs the first explanation the most.
It is unclear whether the theme is that science proves God, or that science is God. I my opinion the second one seems the more suitable, although it seems the author backs the first explanation the most.