7

Maximilian Kohler leads Robert Langdon through CERN’s main lobby, a vast glass-roofed atrium that impresses Langdon with its sterile grandeur. Langdon observes Kohler’s advanced wheelchair, which functions like a mobile command center, and senses the director’s emotional distance, authority, and urgency.

As Kohler escorts Langdon deeper into the facility, Langdon tries to ask about the faxed photograph of the murdered man, but Kohler stops him and says he is taking Langdon to the body. The scientists they pass react with surprise at seeing Langdon in Kohler’s company, reinforcing Kohler’s fearsome status at CERN.

Kohler challenges Langdon’s American assumptions about scientific leadership and points out CERN’s role in inventing the World Wide Web. Langdon is surprised, while Kohler dismisses the Web as minor compared with CERN’s larger scientific achievements, which he calls “miracles.”

Their exchange turns briefly personal when Kohler mistakes Langdon’s work in religious symbology for religious belief. Langdon clarifies that he is an academic, not a priest, and Kohler accepts the distinction in clinical terms, suggesting they may understand each other despite Langdon’s doubts.

As they continue, a growing roar leads them to CERN’s Free Fall Tube, an indoor skydiving wind tunnel used for stress relief. Langdon watches people floating in the vertical air current, and Kohler explains the physics of drag when Langdon notices a heavy woman using a small parachute-like device. The narration notes that this apparently incidental lesson will later save Langdon’s life.