Aqualung

In the novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" Jules Verne describes the prototype of the modern scuba diver, invented in 1943 by another equally famous Frenchman - Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

«Using the Rukeirol-Deneyrouse device, invented by your compatriot and improved by me, you can immerse yourself in an environment with completely different physiological conditions without any damage to your health. This device is a tank made of thick sheet iron, into which air is injected at a pressure of fifty atmospheres. The tank is fastened on the diver's back with straps, like a soldier's satchel. The upper part of the tank encloses a kind of forging bellows that regulates the air pressure, bringing it up to normal. In the ordinary device of Ruqueyrol, two rubber tubes connect the tank with a special mask, which is placed over the face of the diver; one tube serves for the inhalation of fresh air, the other for the removal of exhaust air, and the diver presses the valve of one or the other tube with his tongue as required. But I, in order to withstand on the bottom of the sea a considerable pressure of the upper layers of water, had to put a copper helmet with two tubes - inhalation and exhalation - on my head instead of a mask, as in a spacesuit».

Submarine

One of Verne's best creations was the submarine Nautilus, which he “built” in «20000 Leagues Under the Sea» and «The Mysterious Island». The unique machine fascinated the Spanish sailor Isaac Peral. Just eighteen years after publication, the advent of the first electric submarine becomes a reality

«The Mysterious Island»

«In the center of the lake was some long spindle-shaped object. It was motionless and silent. The light it emitted streamed from its sides as if from the mouths of two hot furnaces. This apparatus, which resembled an enormous whale, was about two hundred and fifty feet long and towering. two hundred and fifty feet long and ten to twelve feet above the water level...... She approached its left side, from which a beam of light came through the thick glass.

Cyrese Smith and his friends climbed up to the platform. An open hatch was visible on it. Everyone entered the hatch opening. At the bottom of the ladder was an inner corridor lit by electricity.

«20000 Leagues Under the Sea»

«Here, Professor Aronnax, are the various dimensions of this boat that is now transporting you. It is a very long cylinder with tapered ends. It visibly resembles a cigar, a form already adopted in London for several projects of the same kind. The length of this cylinder from end to end is exactly seventy meters, and its maximum beam width is eight meters. Thus, it is not exactly built on the ratio of ten to one-as in your high-speed steamers; but its circumferences are long enough, and their narrowing gradual enough, so that the displaced water slips easily past and does not obstruct the movements of the vessel. These two measurements give, by a simple calculation, the surface area and volume of the Nautilus. Its surface area is 1011.45 square meters and its volume is 1507.2 cubic meters, which is equivalent to saying that when fully submerged it displaces 1500 cubic meters of water, or weighs 1500 metric tons»

Planes and helicopters

In the novel "Robur the Conqueror" Robur's ship is lifted into the air by huge propellers and therefore looks more like a helicopter. And in the sequel novel "Lord of the World" Robur invented a machine that could move through air, land and water. And although here Jules Verne has not yet guessed, because no one has yet managed to create such a thing.

"Lord of the World"

"And if it were light, the people of the villages and farms might have seen some giant bird of prey swooping across the sky, some winged monster that rose above Great Airy and flew eastward!"

"The main engine consisted of two Parsons turbines arranged longitudinally on either side of the keel. Driven with great velocity by these turbines, the propellers, crashing into the water, caused the apparatus to move in the water, and I even wondered if they did not also give it forward motion in the atmosphere."

"Once on deck, I saw what I could not have seen during the night flight from Niagara Falls to Great Airy - I saw the action of two huge wings flapping at port and starboard sides, while the turbines revolved frantically beneath the apparatus platform."

"Robur the Conqueror"

"It was spindle-shaped; its greenish coloring blended with the color of the sea water."

"To the sides of the vessel were fastened boarded fixtures like those found on Dutch galleots: the purpose of them was not clear to me."

Videoconferencing.

Тhe short story "One Day of an American Journalist in 2889" (1889) describes something like videoconferencing.

«On waking up, Bennet first of all switched on the phonotelephone to communicate by wire with the mansion he owned on the Champs-Elysees.

The telephone, supplemented by the phonotelephone, is another conquest of our age! If the transmission of the voice by means of electric current has long existed, the transmission of the image is a recent discovery. A valuable invention for which Francis Bennet, looking at his wife in the mirror of the phonotelephone, blessed the scientist».

A flight to the moon and back.

Verne's most surprising expectations go back to other places, the oceans of space. In the first experimental voyage of the novel "From the Earth to the Moon" (1865) there are animal crews. And the first living creature to go into space was the dog Laika. Jules Verne did not see the future of mankind in the confined space of the globe.

"Man will go to the moon, he will go to the planets, he will go to the stars. Distance is nothing more than a relative word, and it will inevitably be reduced to zero"

There are other predictions of events: the ship Verne arrived on the moon was called the Columbia. It was made of aluminum and carried a crew of three. The American Apollo XI module (1969) was called Columbia and also carried three astronauts to the Moon.

Both spacecraft were conical and measured 3.65 meters; Apollo XI weighed 5,621 kilograms and the Vern device weighed 5,345 kilograms.

In the nineteenth century, two great powers, France and England, were expected to launch a spacecraft. However, the French writer preferred to send an American ship to the moon. Moreover, he decided to launch the ship in Cape Town, about one hundred kilometers from Cape Canaveral (Florida), the place that NASA had chosen for its mission.

The choice was not random. Vern calculated that to launch a rocket into space, one must take into account the Earth's rotation, escape velocity, and one's own initial velocity. The closer to the Earth's equator, the less energy would be required and therefore launch costs would be lower.

The Cape Town launch site, as well as Cape Canaveral, are located south of the United States. This takes into account the case of a ship crash. If the project goes badly, tons of iron and fuel will fall ashore and endanger lives. But if launched from a coastal point, the remains would collapse into the ocean without creating unnecessary risks.

Verne successfully calculated the necessary speed for the rocket to overcome the Earth's gravity and escape into space. It should have been about eleven kilometers per second, which is a fairly accurate calculation. The speed reached by Apollo XI was 40,000 kilometers per hour, which is slightly higher than the French science fiction writer's 38,720 kilometers per hour.

The travel time to the moon landing also proved to be correct. The hero explorers flew 83 hours, and in the case of the American ship 97 hours.

In both cases, the landing occurred in the Sea of Tranquility.

Finally, the landing of the capsule on the return to Earth of Apollo XI took place in the Pacific Ocean, just four kilometers from the place indicated by the author of the novel.

Земенков Матвей Игоревич, ученик 9 Б класса МАОУ СОШ № 12 имени маршала Советского Союза К.К. Рокоссовского г. Великие Луки Псковской области 

Учитель английского языка - Тимофеева Марина Алексеевна.