Page 125 of The Lost Symbol

Silly me. “And boiling pasta is going to help us decipher the pyramid?”

Katherine ignored the comment, her tone turning serious. “As I’m sure you know, there is a historical and symbolic reason the Masons chose thirty-three as their highest degree.”

“Of course,” Langdon said. In the days of Pythagoras, six centuries before Christ, the tradition of numerology hailed the number 33 as the highest of all the Master Numbers. It was the most sacred figure, symbolizing Divine Truth. The tradition lived on within the Masons . . . and elsewhere. It was no coincidence that Christians were taught that Jesus was crucified at age thirty-three, despite no real historical evidence to that effect. Nor was it coincidence that Joseph was said to have been thirty-three when he married the Virgin Mary, or that Jesus accomplished thirty-three miracles, or that God’s name was mentioned thirty-three times in Genesis, or that, in Islam, all the dwellers of heaven were permanently thirty-three years old.

“Thirty-three,” Katherine said, “is a sacred number in many mystical traditions.”

“Correct.” Langdon still had no idea what this had to do with a pasta pot.

“So it should come as no surprise to you that an early alchemist, Rosicrucian, and mystic like Isaac Newton also considered the number thirty-three special.”

“I’m sure he did,” Langdon replied. “Newton was deep into numerology, prophecy, and astrology, but what does—”

“All is revealed at the thirty-third degree.”

Langdon pulled Peter’s ring from his pocket and read the inscription. Then he glanced back at the pot of water. “Sorry, you lost me.”

“Robert, earlier tonight, we all assumed ‘thirty-third degree’ referred to the Masonic degree, and yet when we rotated that ring thirty-three degrees, the cube transformed and revealed a cross. At that moment, we realized the word degree was being used in another sense.”

“Yes. Degrees of arc.”

“Exactly. But degree has a third meaning as well.”

Langdon eyed the pot of water on the stove. “Temperature.”

“Exactly!” she said. “It was right in front of us all night. ‘All is revealed at the thirty-third degree.’ If we bring this pyramid’s temperature to thirty-three degrees . . . it may just reveal something.”

Langdon knew Katherine Solomon was exceptionally bright, and yet she seemed to be missing a rather obvious point. “If I’m not mistaken, thirty-three degrees is almost freezing. Shouldn’t we be putting the pyramid in the freezer?”

Katherine smiled. “Not if we want to follow the recipe written by the great alchemist and Rosicrucian mystic who signed his papers Jeova Sanctus Unus.”

Isaacus Neutonuus wrote recipes?

“Robert, temperature is the fundamental alchemical catalyst, and it was not always measured in Fahrenheit and Celsius. There are far older temperature scales, one of them invented by Isaac—”

“The Newton Scale!” Langdon said, realizing she was right.

“Yes! Isaac Newton invented an entire system of quantifying temperature based entirely on natural phenomena. The temperature of melting ice was Newton’s base point, and he called it ‘the zeroth degree.’ ” She paused. “I suppose you can guess what degree he assigned the temperature of boiling water—the king of all alchemical processes?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Yes, thirty-three! The thirty-third degree. On the Newton Scale, the temperature of boiling water is thirty-three degrees. I remember asking my brother once why Newton chose that number. I mean, it seemed so random. Boiling water is the most fundamental alchemical process, and he chose thirty-three? Why not a hundred? Why not something more elegant? Peter explained that, to a mystic like Isaac Newton, there was no number more elegant than thirty-three.”

All is revealed at the thirty-third degree. Langdon glanced at the pot of water and then over at the pyramid. “Katherine, the pyramid is made out of solid granite and solid gold. Do you really think boiling water is hot enough to transform it?”

The smile on her face told Langdon that Katherine knew something he did not know. Confidently, she walked over to the island, lifted the gold-capped, granite pyramid, and set it in the strainer. Then she carefully lowered it into the bubbling water. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

High above the National Cathedral, the CIA pilot locked the helicopter in auto-hover mode and surveyed the perimeter of the building and the grounds. No movement. His thermal imaging couldn’t penetrate the cathedral stone, and so he couldn’t tell what the team was doing inside, but if anyone tried to slip out, the thermal would pick it up.

It was sixty seconds later that a thermal sensor pinged. Working on the same principle as home-security systems, the detector had identified a strong temperature differential. Usually this meant a human form moving through a cool space, but what appeared on the monitor was more of a thermal cloud, a patch of hot air drifting across the lawn. The pilot found the source, an active vent on the side of Cathedral College.

Probably nothing, he thought. He saw these kinds of gradients all the time. Someone cooking or doing laundry. As he was about to turn away, though, he realized something odd. There were no cars in the parking lot and no lights on anywhere in the building.

He studied the UH-60’s imaging system for a long moment. Then he radioed down to his team leader. “Simkins, it’s probably nothing, but . . .”

“Incandescent temperature indicator!” Langdon had to admit, it was clever.

“It’s simple science,” Katherine said. “Different substances incandesce at different temperatures. We call them thermal markers. Science uses these markers all the time.”