Angels Demons Page 0,7

like a toy. "What's her little chute for?" Langdon asked Kohler. "It can't be more than a yard in diameter."

"Friction," Kohler said. "Decreases her aerodynamics so the fan can lift her." He started down the the corridor again. "One square yard of drag will slow a falling body almost twenty percent."

Langdon nodded blankly.

He never suspected that later that night, in a country hundreds of miles away, the information would save his life.

8

When Kohler and Langdon emerged from the rear of CERN's main complex into the stark Swiss sunlight, Langdon felt as if he'd been transported home. The scene before him looked like an Ivy League campus.

A grassy slope cascaded downward onto an expansive lowlands where clusters of sugar maples dotted quadrangles bordered by brick dormitories and footpaths. Scholarly looking individuals with stacks of books hustled in and out of buildings. As if to accentuate the collegiate atmosphere, two longhaired hippies hurled a Frisbee back and forth while enjoying Mahler's Fourth Symphony blaring from a dorm window.

"These are our residential dorms," Kohler explained as he accelerated his wheelchair down the path toward the buildings. "We have over three thousand physicists here. CERN single-handedly employs more than half of the world's particle physicists - the brightest minds on earth - Germans, Japanese, Italians, Dutch, you name it. Our physicists represent over five hundred universities and sixty nationalities."

Langdon was amazed. "How do they all communicate?"

"English, of course. The universal language of science."

Langdon had always heard math was the universal language of science, but he was too tired to argue. He dutifully followed Kohler down the path.

Halfway to the bottom, a young man jogged by. His T-shirt proclaimed the message: NO GUT, NO GLORY!

Langdon looked after him, mystified. "Gut?"

"General Unified Theory." Kohler quipped. "The theory of everything."

"I see," Langdon said, not seeing at all.

"Are you familiar with particle physics, Mr. Langdon?"

Langdon shrugged. "I'm familiar with general physics - falling bodies, that sort of thing." His years of high-diving experience had given him a profound respect for the awesome power of gravitational acceleration. "Particle physics is the study of atoms, isn't it?"

Kohler shook his head. "Atoms look like planets compared to what we deal with. Our interests lie with an atom's nucleus - a mere ten-thousandth the size of the whole." He coughed again, sounding sick. "The men and women of CERN are here to find answers to the same questions man has been asking since the beginning of time. Where did we come from? What are we made of?"

"And these answers are in a physics lab?"

"You sound surprised."

"I am. The questions seem spiritual."

"Mr. Langdon, all questions were once spiritual. Since the beginning of time, spirituality and religion have been called on to fill in the gaps that science did not understand. The rising and setting of the sun was once attributed to Helios and a flaming chariot. Earthquakes and tidal waves were the wrath of Poseidon. Science has now proven those gods to be false idols. Soon all Gods will be proven to be false idols. Science has now provided answers to almost every question man can ask. There are only a few questions left, and they are the esoteric ones. Where do we come from? What are we doing here? What is the meaning of life and the universe?"

Langdon was amazed. "And these are questions CERN is trying to answer?"

"Correction. These are questions we are answering."

Langdon fell silent as the two men wound through the residential quadrangles. As they walked, a Frisbee sailed overhead and skidded to a stop directly in front of them. Kohler ignored it and kept going.

A voice called out from across the quad. "S'il vous plaоt!"

Langdon looked over. An elderly white-haired man in a College Paris sweatshirt waved to him. Langdon picked up the Frisbee and expertly threw it back. The old man caught it on one finger and bounced it a few times before whipping it over his shoulder to his partner. "Merci!" he called to Langdon.

"Congratulations," Kohler said when Langdon finally caught up. "You just played toss with a Noble prize-winner, Georges Charpak, inventor of the multiwire proportional chamber."

Langdon nodded. My lucky day.

It took Langdon and Kohler three more minutes to reach their destination - a large, well-kept dormitory sitting in a grove of aspens. Compared to the other dorms, this structure seemed luxurious. The carved stone sign in front read Building C.

Imaginative title, Langdon thought.

But despite its sterile name, Building C appealed to Langdon's sense of architectural style - conservative and solid. It had a red