Foulcault’s Pendulum
Peter Hunt | October 3rd, 2006
Reason to watch “The Da Vinci Code” on the plane: So you know where not to go in Paris.
The Pantheon is the temple of the French nation. It is huge and haunting and, as it is not mentioned in “The Da Vinci Code”, it is empty. It has its own successful novel though - “Foucault’s Pendulum” by Umberto Eco, which has its own fair share of conspiracy theories. The actual pendulum was designed by the French physicist, Leon Foucault, who hung a weight from the dome of the Pantheon to demonstrate the rotation of the earth. It still swings in the centre of the nave. In the bowels of this basilica are France’s most revered dead: Victor Hugo, Emile Zola, Marie and Pierre Curie and the WWII resistant, Jean Moulin.
