Jules Verne Inventions That Came True (Pictures)-Taser

Taser

Photograph by Jonathan Hayward, Canadian Press/AP

Jules Verne's favorite topic of speculation was the vehicle, but he also wrote about weapons that didn't yet exist. For example, in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, he described a gun that delivers a strong electric jolt, much like a Taser "electronic control device" (pictured).

Of his device, Verne wrote: "The balls sent by this gun are not ordinary balls, but little cases of glass. These glass cases are covered with a case of steel, and weighted with a pellet of lead; they are real Leyden bottles"—18th-century devices used to store static electricity—"into which the electricity is forced to a very high tension. With the slightest shock they are discharged, and the animal, however strong it may be, falls dead."

Verne didn't portray all his inventions as beneficial. "It is a mistake to think he is presenting all these gee-whiz gadgets as something desirable," MIT's Williams said.

"Verne is all too keenly aware of the military and policing potential of new inventions, and highly distrustful of contemporary societies to use them wisely and justly."

Published February 8, 2011