When the French writer Jules Verne died on March 24, 1905, motorized flight, which he made the centerpiece of his 1886 book "Robust Conqueror," passed from fiction to reality. Just two years earlier, the Wright brothers made the first manned flight in human history.
However, at the time, many of Vern's predictions about world-changing technologies were still far from being realized. Circling the moon in a spaceship, as he described it in his 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon, seemed like a distant fantasy. But it came true in 1968, just 63 years after the death of Jules Verne, with the NASA mission, Apollo 8.
Vern is great for the way he vividly imagined possible developments in existing technology and then incorporated those ideas into exciting adventure stories. That fascinating combination of fact and fiction makes Verne's novels still ideal for stimulating interest in science and technology, despite all the advances since they were written. That's why Verne's stories inspired a whole host of scientists and inventors, and they continue to do so today. Here are four such examples.
Simon Lake (1866-1945), submarine designer
Simon Lake was an American naval architect who designed some of the first submarines for the US Navy. He said he was inspired by Jules Verne, especially his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869-1870), which he first read when he was 10 or 11.
That book describes the Nautilus, a far more advanced submarine than those that existed when the book was written. Lake was possessed by the ambition to build a submarine that would be like the "Nautilus" or surpass it in its features.
He made some progress, designing a submarine named "Argonaut". The successful journey of the "Argonaut" of 1.000 miles in 1898 brought Lejka great satisfaction because of the congratulatory message sent by Vern himself by telegram.
Later, Verne's grandson, Jean Gilles Verne, was invited to be the "godfather" of one of Lake's more advanced submarines. She was even baptized as "Nautilus" in honor of the French author, on the eve of the Arctic expedition in 1931.
Alberto Santos-Dumon (1873-1932), aviation pioneer and inventor
Brazilian inventor Alberto Santos-Dumon not only designed and built some of the first motor-powered airships, but also piloted them. With his airship no. 6. he visited the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1901, which brought him world fame.
Santos-Dumon continued to design and construct powered aircraft, such as gliders or ornithopters. In November 1906, he made a flight of 220 meters at a height of six meters in the airplane "14-bis".
In his book My Airships, Santos-Dumont cited several of Verne's works as inspiration for his curiosity about the world and technology, calling the French writer his "favorite author" from his youth.
Igor Sikorski (1889-1972), aviation pioneer
Igor Sikorsky's mother, Maria Stefanovna Sikorskaya, instilled in him a love for Verne's stories. That pioneer of the Russian-American aviation was first delighted by Verne's book "The Robber the Conqueror". She inspired Sikorsky to build the helicopters for which he became famous.
Before the October Revolution in Russia, Sikorsky constructed the first four-engine plane "Russian Knight", which is considered the first passenger plane in the world.
After moving to the United States in 1919, Sikorski also designed a number of fixed-wing aircraft, but is best known for having succeeded in designing the Sikorski VS-1939 helicopter in 300, and subsequently the Sikorski R-4, the world's first mass-produced helicopter .
Konstantin Edudardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), scientist
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky is one of the pioneers of modern rocket technology and astronautics. He cited Jules Verne as the person who inspired him and sparked his interest in spaceflight.
Tsiolkovsky also looked up to Verne as a writer, publishing the novel "On the Moon" in 1893. He also wrote many philosophical and scientific works related to space travel and man's relationship with the cosmos.
Verne's fictional depictions of spaceships carrying lunar passengers like shells fired from a cannon would never succeed in reality. In contrast, Tsiolkovsky developed theories about the principles of rocket propulsion and space travel that are feasible and valid to this day.
Like Verne, Tsiolkovski was convinced that one day humans would move further into the solar system. "Man will not always remain on Earth; the pursuit of light and space will lead him to penetrate beyond the boundary of the atmosphere, timidly at first, but in the end he will conquer the entire solar space", reads the inscription that Tsiolkovski himself made for his tombstone.
Bonus video:
