Dan Brown got an audience with the Pope when he was researching "Angels and Demons" so that he would have Catholic procedure down pat. If you look at the notes in the front, they explain about CERN's reasearch, not to give anything away.
I read A&D first, and I have to say that I enjoyed DVC more, but A&D had a darker premise to it. When my mom read DVC, we were both online searching the topics!
And I've heard the theories in the book before, so it's not just a bunch of crack. The guy is good.