help! anyone explain to me foucoult's pendulum by umberto eco?

Answer 1

Umberto Eco is a semiotician in his other life. Semiotics is the study of what we would probably call metadata - the extra information conveyed by concrete symbols. Or, perhaps, in McLuhanesque argot "The medium is the message".

Foucalt's Pendulum is about how the perception of a conspiracy can, without more, create the reality of a conspiracy. It is about symbolism - language and actions - creating the reality of a conspiracy.

It is like the Da Vinci Code. After reading that work of fiction people come to believe in the reality of a conspiracy. Foucalt's Pendulum was written after Blood and the Holy Grail, but well before Da Vinci Code (which stole a lot from Blood and the Holy Grail.

Answer 2

Historically, Foucault's pendulum is the first experiment that really proves that Earth is rotating.
The rotation generates a side effect to the centrifuge force, which is the Coriolis force acting at a right angle. That force "deviates" the pendulum and the effect is visible -and measurable- if the pendulum is very long and is submitted to no unwanted vibration etc.
If the measure is very accurate you can calculate the latitude of the place where the pendulum is (Paris, for example).

Answer 3

These links will give you a summary of the book, character analysis, plot and much more, so that you will be able to answer literary questions.

For the Great Works of World Literature.

( Book Summaries & Study Guides)

http://www.schoolbytes.com/list-p.php

http://www.jiffynotes.com/

http://www.awerty.addr.com/summaries.html

http://education.yahoo.com/homework_help/cliffsnotes/all.html

http://www.gradesaver.com/

http://summarycentral.tripod.com/

http://www.bookwolf.com/

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/

http://sparknotes.com/

http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/index.asp

http://www.shvoong.com/

http://www.reviewsofbooks.com

http://thebestnotes.com/

http://www.monkeynotes.com/

http://www.pinkmonkey.com/

http://barronsbooknotes.com/

http://www.studyworld.com/

http://aesop.thefreelibrary.com/

http://www.allreaders.com/

http://www.novelguide.com/

http://www.hoboes.com/Mimsy/?CAT=reviews

http://www.bartleby.com/

http://www.homework-online.com/litguides.asp

http://absoluteshakespeare.com/index.htm

http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~jmcd/book/

http://www.4literature.net/

http://www.online-literature.com/

http://www.online-literature.com/author_index.php

Literature reviews

http://everything2.com/index.pl

English literature

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=57905&lastnode_id=124

Good luck.

Kevin, Liverpool, England.