Jules Verne predicts the rise of internet shopping and the decline of the High Street.

[John Lamb]

Hello everyone,

Who would have thought that Verne would have foreseen the rise of Amazon Prime?

(please see the attachment from Propellor Island (1895).

I feel internet shopping and the subsequent decline in the number of  high street shoppers needs to be added to the list of Verne's predictions. 

One question is how did he predict this?

Did he sit down with scientist friends on the St Michelle III and propose a motion for debate?....such as 

 'In the future will we be able to send photographs and  moving images through submarine cables?'

That is the easy bit, far far harder would be a secondary question.

What would be the social consequences?

To predict the decline of the high street and basically the rise of private internet shopping companies such Amazon Prime is another example of the genius of Jules Verne.

Any thoughts?

John Lamb

[mken...@aol.com]

Hello John,

great – it seems to be a prediction of e-mails. They even have digital signatures. Remote marriages, as introduced in Ukraine (and maybe other countries)? No problem. Remote divorces? Neither. (Which seems logical, of course.)

— Ce qui signifie que nous employons communément le télautographe, un appareil perfectionné qui transporte l’écriture comme le téléphone transporte la parole, sans oublier le kinétographe qui enregistre les mouvements, étant pour l’œil ce que le phonographe est pour l’oreille, et le téléphote qui reproduit les images. Ce télautographe donne une garantie plus sérieuse que la simple dépêche dont le premier venu est libre d’abuser. Nous pouvons signer électriquement des mandats ou des traites…

— Même des actes de mariage ?… réplique Pinchinat d’un ton ironique.

— Sans doute, monsieur l’alto. Pourquoi ne se marierait-on pas par fil télégraphique…

— Et divorcer ?…

— Et divorcer !… C’est même ce qui use le plus nos appareils ! »

Là-dessus, bruyant éclat de rire du cicerone, qui fait trembloter toute la bibeloterie de son gilet.

« Vous êtes gai, monsieur Munbar, dit Pinchinat, en partageant l’hilarité de l’Américain.

— Oui… comme une envolée de pinsons un jour de soleil ! »

https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/L%E2%80%99%C3%8Ele_%C3%A0_h%C3%A9lice/Premi%C3%A8re_Partie/Chapitre_III

Best wishes

Matthias

[quentin skrabec]

Hi

there is only one of those many questions I feel I can comment on. I have been researching the nature of Verne’s “ability” to predict some fantastic futuristic engineering. I believe it is rooted in Verne’s deep dive into the Victorian science of his time. Like Leonardo da Vinci, Verne's ideas seem to resist death. It is not in the engineering details but in Verne’s concepts and ideas that have longevity. This immortality is related to Verne’s use and study of evolving scientific principles. Victorian scientific principles such as electromagnetism, photoelectric effects, and thermodynamics are still cornerstones today. Except for quantum theory, Victorian science's basics and principles are foundational to science's advance. In particular, the electrical principles of Faraday and others were followed closely by Verne. Faraday often included futuristic applications in his writings.

In his book Physics of the Future (2011), theoretical physicist Michio Kuku notes that Verne’s research, study, and collaboration allowed him to be in a future that was already present.  There are examples where you stand in awe of the depth of Verne’s scientific knowledge. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and Mysterious Island (1874) are best described as chemical romances. Verne moves between the romance of chemistry and a textbook of Victorian chemistry.

 

The extent of Jules Verne’s knowledge and understanding of Victorian science is the key to Verne’s futurism. Verne refused to be called a scientist. However, many of his novels betray him; for most readers, the combination of storytelling and science attracted them. Verne anchors his works on science and exploration with the study and review. This scientific foundation allows Verne’s visions to be reborn even today in such things as sea illumination, compressed air storage of energy, air batteries, liquid air engines, carbon dioxide engines, space cannons, pneumatic air trains, hydrogen-fueled vehicles, circular cities, floating cities, economic hydrogen production through electrolysis, wind power and tractor rays.   Verne’s used the theories of scientists such as Humphrey Davy, François Arago, Micheal Faraday, James Maxwell, Heinrich Hertz, Charles Sainte-Claire Deville, Elie de Beaumont, Louis Figuier, and adventurers such as Jacques Arago, Alexander von Humboldt, Jean Chaffanjon, and Camille Flammarion. Part of Verne’s perpetuity is directly related to the perpetuity of Victorian scientific theories, which were foundational to engineering and even the current quantum state of physics today. 

Another area of research is Verne’s understanding of exponential growth.Verne’s hybridized design augured the 1960s space race and arms race design methods. Verne anticipates that applying new scientific principles could be amalgamated to achieve the engineering needed for the project. He saw technology as exponential growth. When the project team feels overwhelmed by the engineering advances needed, chief engineer Barbicane enforces their faith, “if we put our minds to it and take advantage of scientific progress, we should be to make cannonballs ten times heavier.”  Verne had a true sense of exponential growth.    Verne’s ability to foresee the exponential growth of technology overcomes his natural human bias to think linearly. Exponential thinking allows Verne to design into the future based on the past. Verne never mentions technology's “exponential” growth in his writings but demonstrates it using history and statistics. 

 

I have 4 published articles and two in-process I would be happy to share

Quent

[rfb...@aol.com]

I would like to point out another factor is simply Verne's very reputation as a Prophet. Thus the Opera Singer's Image in CARPATHIAN CHATEAU -- which was actuallly a common magician's trick of that era -- has been hailed as "predicting" Motion Pictures, Television, and Holograms. (The changing nature of the 'fulfillment' reflecting the technology of the eras as much as the literary original text.)

The late Brian Taves and I often discussed this issue with regard to the American Fifties making Nemo a pioneer of Atomic Power (first in the Columbia MYSTERIOUS ISLAND movie serial, then more famously in the Disney 20,000 LEAGUES.) In this case I argue another element was reassurance -- if nuclear energy in Nemo's hands hadn't destroyed the world in the last century, it implied we wouldn't do so in the "present" either.

The book WHEN OLD TECHNOLOGIES  WERE NEW is all about how the social implications of the new inventions were implicit in the creation. (One chapter weighs why the telephone led to one "virtual community" forming in Austro-Hungary -- but why nowhere else.) Steampunk such as the Canadian MURDOCH MYSTERIES television series of course so backreads contemporary issues into past eras for satiric purposes.

In conclusion, it diminishes nothing about Verne as polymath or popularizer to point out the audience's role in this phenomenon. If anything, it shows the prepared minds already ripe to perceive when the "invention" is called to their attention, Verne thus acting as a catalyst.

Ross Bagby

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[James D. Keeline]

If Jules Verne were writing today, his science fiction novels would be compared with "techno thrillers" of the kind written by Tom Clancy or Clive Cussler.  It is also a bit like "hard science fiction" because he tries to explain his fictional inventions with some description.

This is, of course, a difference between Verne and Wells and it was raised even during Verne's lifetime.  Dawbarn writes of this in Pall Mall in May 1904 (attached).  Verne chides the use of a new unknown metal ("Cavorite") with zero weight and the ability to repel gravity from the portrayal.  In a similar exchange he challenges Wells to produce such a material.

Verne's stories popularized scientific and engineering advancements in the same way that later books about the young inventor Tom Swift or other science fiction stories often did.  Some Tom Swift stories seem to predict more commonplace inventions.  However, with deeper research one can usually find a precursor that was at least described, if not actually built.  For Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone (1914), the Ernst Ruhmer "Telephot" in 1909 is an earlier example that was extrapolated by Stratemeyer/Garis and even Hugo Gernsback.

Even the old Star Trek, with so much that is thought impossible now, has a reputation for predicting the future.  That show was so popular that when people were designing pocket communication devices or storage media (3.5 disks and CDs) that they looked to make theirs look like what they saw in Star Trek.  Tablets like the iPad resemble the Data Padds of Next Generation.  Where Star Trek fails as a predictor of the future is something like the personal computer.  Instead everything is on a "mainframe" concept with terminals.

The illusion mentioned in Carpathians sounds a lot like the Pepper's Ghost effect.

A recent episode of QI for British television with the theme of "Visionaries" had a good deal of time spent on Verne and particularly Paris in the Twentieth Century.  Since this book was published recently (compared with his others) for the first time, I wonder if any of it was edited in French or translation to emphasize correct "predictions" and make him seem even more reliable than the manuscript might have held.  Even in how words are translated can things be changed.

Most of what they said in the show seemed correct.  They brought up the issue of translations and even raised the issue about whether there was a balloon in Around the World in 80 Days.  So this can help to popularize more correct information.  I almost thought a NAJVS member had consulted on this segment.

James D. Keeline

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[quentin skrabec]

One of Verne's most under-researched areas is his prediction accuracy in a 10-year horizon. These short-term predictions have been lost to many because his longer-term predictions have a WOW factor. The short-term predictions are often lost to the modern reader because it takes a deep knowledge of the advances and timeline of Victorian science.

in his 1875 Mysterious Island  Verne correctly predicted that coal would become a factor in ironmaking roughly a few years before the significant breakthrough. His blast furnace on the island uses coal when most iron in 1875 from produced from charcoal 

Verne saw this exponential doubling would be driven by the then emerging use of coal in steelmaking, which by the late 1880s was the major consumption sector. In the 1880s, coal usage in the steel industry would be more prominent than its use as a heating fuel. Verne augured the potential massive use of coal in steel and iron in Begum’s Fortune (1879).

Verne even predicts the  Mysterious Island, the 1880s exponential explosion in coal usage. . "With the increasing consumption of coal," …"it can be foreseen that the hundred thousand workmen will soon become two hundred thousand, and that the rate of extraction will be doubled."[i]

Verne’s vision of the Steel Age was just as extraordinary short term Verne was convinced of the future of steel even before Andrew Carnegie, who 1870 hesitated to invest in it. Verne's use of steel would be integral to his stories in The Blockage Runners (1865), The Adventures of Three Russians and Three Englishmen in South Africa (1872), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), Steam House (1880), Begum's Millions (1879), and The Self-Propelled Island (1895). Verne’s series of Voyages Extraordinaire rides the exponential growth of technology over time, with Verne continuously adapting to the potential of steel in newer novels.

Verne also predicted the rubber singularity (commercial breakthrough) of 1890 with a number of simple applications. Most of these applications were being tested and were with 5 years of commercial use.  Verne grasped the importance of rubber before it became a standard engineering material in the 1880s [i].   In From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Verne used rubber to patch loose capsule space bolt holes. [ii] Verne used rubber to seal watertight compartments of the Nautilus in 1870 hermetically[iii]. Verne used rubber hoses and seals to design diving apparatus in Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870).[iv] In Clipper of the Clouds (1880), he uses rubber hoses to suck up water from rivers to his airship[v] . In The Tribulations of a Chinaman in China (1878), Verne uses rubber hoses to communicate between rooms. Rubber has the perfect properties for products like rafts and diving suits. In The Tribulations of a Chinaman in China, Verne creates a rubber raft/ suit for water travel. His novels Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon (1881) and The Mighty Orinoco (1898) deal with South American rubber production, including the growing evils of exponential growth.

There are many more of Verne's short term (horizon) that would not seen as amazing to the modern reader but to a reader of his times would. 

 

 

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[i] Jules Verne, The Tribulations of a Chinaman in China, 1880 Edition, Amazon Kindle version, p 24

[ii] Jules Verne, From Earth to the Moon, Kindle Bilingual Edition From The Earth To The Moon / De la terre à la lune (Bilingual Edition: English - French / Édition bilingue: anglais – français PART TWO p. 87

[iii] Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Amazon Bilingual edition, Location 2929

[iv] Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, Amazon Bilingual edition, Location 3877

[v] Jules Verne, Clipper of the Clouds, 1886, Amazon Kindle addition location 1420

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[i] Jules Verne, Mysterious Island, Kindle Edition, p. 188

 

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Subject: Re: [JVF] Re: Jules Verne predicts the rise of internet shopping and the decline of the High Street.

 

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[William Butcher]

James,

You're right, the translation of Paris in the Twentieth Century by Richard Howard is not good: quite a few mis-translations and over-simplifications. For more detail, please see parisrandom.pdf About time  for a new attempt?

Bill

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[William Butcher]

[quentin skrabec]

Any news on a new translation?  i feel this novel is the cornerstone of his future writings — holding many insights for all of us

Quent

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[William Butcher]

I'm afraid not.

bill

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[quentin skrabec]

It would be a great project for you (:

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[mken...@aol.com]

James:

»The illusion mentioned in Carpathians sounds a lot like the Pepper's Ghost effect.«

You are right. It was identified back in the day, The Westminster Review  January-June 1893: Vol 139, p. 96:

»but, in our opinion, Le Château des Carpathes is anything but a romantic story. It is simply a marvellous tale made up of all the scientific inventions of the last twenty years— from the reflecting mirrors which produced “ Pepper’s Ghosts ” at the old Polytechnic, down to the telephone, the phonograph, and all the latest novelties by Edison.«

https://archive.org/details/sim_westminster-review_january-june-1893_139/page/96/mode/2up

But of course it’s a perfected version. La Stilla’s picture looks lifelike (three-dimensional). It is not like a (Pepper’s) ghost, but more like a hologram.

Best wishes

Matthias

[John Lamb]

 Michio Kaku’s asks ‘how does Verne do it? 

 These are my thoughts in trying to answer that question

Firstly, I think that, although undoubtedly a genius (I think the Leonardo da Vinci comparison is very apt) and I agree with Verne looking exponentially at scientific development. I do believe however that Jules Verne may have had a far greater number of scientific advisors (especially American and British), for a longer time period  than previously thought. Possible suspects would be the Transatlantic cable entrepreneur Cyrus Field, Oceanographer Mathew Fontaine Maury, shipbuilder John Laird, Paleontologist Sir Richard Owen (inventor of the word dinosaur) and Lord Kelvin….these people .....or others of similar status.

 

Secondly, I think Verne may have had a greater number of educational, and even royal sponsors over a longer time than previously thought to help Verne network in his ideas. My first example is the Paris based newspaper magnate Gordon Bennett Jr. Bennett gets so much ‘product placement’ for the New York Herald in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and then ‘plays’ the part of reporter Gideon Spillett of the New York Herald in the sequel The Mysterious Island.  If Bennett did not pay Verne, then he should have done. Bennett of course did sponsor Jules Verne’s In the Year 2889 (1889). He was also an eccentric lunatic whose 'wild animal hoax' in Central Park seems to be played out in Propellor Island (1895). 

Another patron who may have been more involved is Napoleon III who paid for the Great Eastern to be refurbished for the 1867 Paris Exposition and sent Jules Verne to America to help publicise the event. Verne also, received the Legion d’honneur from Napoleon III. Verne seems to be a ‘goodwill ambassador’ linking Britain, France and America (despite what he says about the British Empire in Mysterious Island).

 

Thirdly Verne’s love of America and America’s love for Jules Verne. There seems to be a conscious effort on the behalf of the American Government to carry out the wishes of Jules Verne, whether it is to build the world’s first submarine called Nautilus and sail it under an ice cap, or a spaceship called Colombia and send it to the Moon and get Neil Armstrong to give a speech praising Jules Verne the day before the Apollo 11 astronauts splash down in the Pacific Ocean. A catalyst to scientific advancement – most definitely and on one or two occasions perhaps consciously .   

 

Fourthly despite professing his love for America, Verne said he knew little of the English language, …I believe it would be ‘too inefficient’ for someone who is ‘networking’ almost as a communal writing organism to not speak English. But if so, why hide it? why deceive about it? 

These are just my thoughts.

 

John

[John Lamb]

...meant to say world's first nuclear submarine...

[James D. Keeline]

Probably the most common modern examples of "Pepper's Ghost" that has been experienced by millions are the Haunted Mansions of Disney theme parks.  Most of these include a "Ballroom" with ghosts dancing and celebrating as the ride vehicles move by the scene.  This is a full three-dimensional effect.

A giant pane of glass is the reflecting surface where the carefully illuminated subjects (above and below the ride vehicle) create the illusion of apparitions amid the physical objects of the Ballroom.

As might be imagined, this effect is easiest to achieve with incandescent electric lights.  Edison's version was from 1879 but there are claims from the 1840s.  So there is plenty of time for illusionists to experiment with applications of the light source.

Some of the Disney Imagineers, particularly Yale Gracey, had a magic background.  Disney historians have noted that this was inspired by Popular Mechanics projects from Dec. 1907.  But this was far from the earliest account as noted.

The phrase "hologram" is tossed around for a 3D effect without following the scientific definition which uses a laser, with its monochromatic and coherent beam of light, a beam splitter, and a film with a recording of an interference pattern of light.  Because lasers are a single color wavelength of light, the holograms produced are that color.

But to someone seeing a large or small Pepper's Ghost effect, it will look like what scientists would call a hologram (except for the multiple colors possible).  So it meets the popular perception of a hologram.

Here is a behind-the-scenes image of the figures that are reflected in the ballroom.

James D. Keeline

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[Jean-Louis Trudel]

Greetings,

W.r.t. to the prediction of Amazon Prime, I've sometimes pointed to my students that, long before Amazon, there were mail-order catalogs (Sears and Roebuck go back to 1886) and while most ordering and delivering happened through the regular mail, it seems to have been possible to submit orders by telegraph.  I'm not sure if that was a thing by 1895, but a deep dive into the history of mail ordering might confirm it.

Speaking of telegraph weddings, I believe Standage's _The Victorian Internet_ mentions a marriage by telegraph between two telegraph operators in the U.S., likely in the late 19th century.

Jean-Louis Trudel

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