50 factual errors in The Lost Symbol & Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown and his Lost Symbol book have enjoyed two weeks of positive publicity and now here comes the bad stuff. The Telegraph reveals 50 factual errors in the novel and also The Da Vinci Code.
Langdon is shown lecturing his students that the Christian tradition of communion, eating the body of their god, comes from the Aztecs. Communion has taken place since the first century; the Aztec civilisation arose during the 13th century. Europeans did not reach central America, where the Aztecs lived, until the late 15th century.
Albino monk Silas lives for some years before the book in a Spanish ‘village’ called Oviedo. Oviedo is a medium-sized city of some 200,000 people, around the same size as Southampton.
A British police officer tells someone over the phone: “This is the London police.” There is no such body. The Metropolitan Police have responsibility for policing the capital; the City of London Police exist, but only in the financial district, the so-called Square Mile.
There’s nothing like a good hatchet job and this is a very good one. Where did Brown do his research? Wikipedia?
And there are exactly two errors from The Lost Symbol, both of them trivial and unimportant.
Nikolaj.
Hey Guys, have been reading “The Lost Symbol”.
Nikolaj is right the two errors you have identified are trivial.
BUT you have missed a HOWLER –The tatooed man pipes hydrogen under the door of the data vault, then runs in some bunsen burner fuel which he then ignites, departs and then KABOOM and the roof is blown off Pod 5.
WRONG the interesting thing about hydrogen is that it does not explode, it IMPLODES and turns into WATER. I have witnessed this many times in experiments by an inventor attempting to set up a car to run on hydrogen. The Hindenburg did not explode, it burnt, and then crashed, the people died from falls or burns.
Now it is possible that if there was lots and lots of hydrogen then the implosion could have sucked in the walls, but you then need lots of OXYGEN.
Still a great great read
Cheers
Alt
I read the article, as well, then again when I couldn’t find the Lost Symbol errors advertised in the headline.
Nonetheless, as with Brown’s other works, The Lost Symbol abounds with historical errors, both minute and egregious. Two of the most egregious concern the Washington Monument.
1) The Washington Monument is NOT the highest point in DC (that honor goes to the top of the Gloria in Excelsis Tower at the National Cathedral).
2) The Washington Monument wasn’t completed until 1878, at least a quarter century too late to play the pivotal role Brown assigns it (until the early 1880s it stood a mere 152 feet tall; the aluminum capstone wasn’t set in place until 1884).
And if Peter Solomon was willing to die to protect the secret that the cornerstone of the Washington Monument contains a Bible, then he was an idiot. That a Bible is among the more than seventy items placed within the cornerstone has been common knowledge since the day the cornerstone was laid. (Amongst the dozens of other items are copies of the letters of John Quincy Adams, Drake’s Poems, platte maps of the city of Washington, and a copy of the by-laws of the Powhatan Tribe. Maybe that’s the REAL key to the Ancient Mysteries.)
Other errors:
1) Yes, Jefferson did redact the Bible. Not looking for hidden meaning but (as any second-rate student of the Founding Fathers could tell you) because as a confirmed Deist, he want Scriptures freed from all taint of the miraculous.
2) Kalorama Heights lies south, not north, of the National Cathedral.
3) If you’re trying to get across the Anacostia River into Maryland, by all means DON’T take Independence Avenue.
4) You can’t do a WHOIS lookup on an IP address.
5) The Tenleytown Metro station is not where Dan Brown thinks it is.
6) Isaac Newton was never a freemason.
And, oh yeah:
7) If you’re looking to make a quick get-away from the basement of the Library of Congress, don’t take the conveyor belts. They’ve been broken for years.
In the first place:
“then runs in some Bunsen burner fuel which he then ignites…”
Bunsen burners operate with liquefied petroleum gas such as propane, butane, or a mixture of both. Or with natural gas (which is principally methane). They DO NOT run off of a viscous oily liquid that one pours out of a “jug” as this lunkhead Dan Brown claims. Doesn’t he do any research?? Jeez. Secondly hydrogen burns in the presence of oxygen in the proper ratio. Hydrogen by itself will not burn. If you were to take a small piece of sodium metal and drop it into a beaker of water it would fizz around until the released hydrogen (from the reaction of sodium-water, generating a great amount of heat as well) mixes with the surrounding oxygen in the air @ 2:1 ratio, and then the heat of the exothermic reaction between the sodium and water will cause the Hydrogen-Oxygen mixture to explode , hence you hear a pop! Yes a hydrogen-oxygen mixture WILL explode under the right circumstances, but the conditions need to be just right. Otherwise the hydrogen-oxygen mixture just burns — usually the case with a large quantities of the mixture as in the case of the Hindenburg. Very small quantities of the mixture tend to explode.
The House of the Temple is built way after 1850, so the pyramid could never have already predicted that. The inscription om THE bottom of the pyramid is supposed to be from 1850 and the house of the temple is newer….hmmmm
page 154 dan brown depicts a redskins player scoring a touchdown.
bull
On a number of occasions, Brown refers to the “skids” on an AH-60 helicopter. Including the skid crashing the skylight, causing the death of the antagonist. The AH-60 Blackhawk has wheels, not skids! (petty yes, but he repeatedly talks about the skids)
Even before 9/11, I find it impossible to believe that when a 911 caller reporting an intentional exploding of the Smithsonian also reports that her super famous, government official brother is being held prisoner at the terrorists mansion, that only a rent-a-cop would be sent to investigate. Let alone that this rent-a-cops’ disappearance would go unnoticed for, well forever!
Are we to believe any part of the Smithsonian is only guarded by a single, football obsessed Barney Fife, and Gomer Pyle the parking attendant? Can Barney not use the phone, or does he not remember the number for 911? And how does Gomer not notice the loud violence in the parking lot, followed by the speeding away of Katherines car? This whole sequence felt very much as if it was written at 3am and no one had the nerve to mention it to Mr. Brown. It leaves a bad taste in this readers mouth that stayed throughout the rest of the otherwise very clever and fascinating book.
Finally, after all is done (if not said) the heroes go galavanting about town, cracking witty jokes and sightseeing, playing pin the tail on the donkey games, blindfolding themselves to protect the hidden location of the Washington Monument for hours, despite having JUST been drowned, tortured, beaten, and having freshly severed limbs!!
I was actually was fascinated and very much enjoyed this book. This why I was so bothered by what I believe to have been silly oversights.
***Another note*** Saying Isaac Newton was not a Mason is much like saying Benjamin Franklin was not a politician. Both statements are simultaneously True and False. We do know Newton attended Masonic lodges regularly, something non masons do NOT do.
THE CIA is portrayed as having powers which are not authorized – ie Domestic Intelligence–I think this is quite a distortion, well–I still have to finish the book(I am talking about SATO)
I agree about the Bunsen burner, BUT maybe they used to! Huh?
Am I missing something?
This is a novel. It is fiction. Why Is it relevant that that some things Dan Brown states as fact are in fact fiction?
Next you’ll be telling me Harry Potter can’t do magic.
Stuart,
The problem lies with the fact that the errors are made not about fictional people, places and bodies, but real ones, from the real world. Basic fact-checking would have alleviated them!