"Jules Vernes - In the Year 2889" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

others first published in English. In contrast to his conservative, plodding
SF novels, "In the Year 2889" dashes wildly from one fanciful extrapolation
to another. Experts believe Jules' son Michel may have authored part of the
story.
Many of the predictions for the year 2889 have already come true. Verne's
dystopian concept of one man brought to vast power and wealth through
widely distributed intellectual property brings to mind names like Samuel
Newhouse and Bill Gates. There are also glimmerings of later science
fiction themes, including suspended animation and turning the moon
around a la Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End (1953).
Of course Verne also made mistakes, and some of his predictions simply
have not come to pass. But give them time: there are nearly nine centuries
left before the year 2889.

Little though they seem to think of it, the people of this 29th century live
continually in fairyland. Surrounded with marvels, they are indifferent to
marvels. To them all seems natural. Could they but appreciate the
refinements of civilization in our day; could they but compare the present
with the past, and recognize the advances we have made! How much fairer
they would find our modern towns, with populations exceeding 10,000,000
souls; streets 300 feet wide, houses 100 feet high; with a constant
temperature in all seasons; and lines of aerial locomotion crossing the sky
in all directions! If they could but imagine the state of things that once
existed, when through muddy streets rumbling boxes on wheels, drawn by
horses--yes, horses!--were the only means of conveyance. Think of the
railroads of old, and you will appreciate the pneumatic tubes through which
today we travel at 100 miles an hour. Would not our contemporaries prize
the telephone and telephote more, had they not forgotten the telegraph?
Surprisingly, all these transformations rest on principles perfectly familiar to
our remote ancestors, which they disregarded. Heat, for instance, is as
ancient as man himself; electricity was known 3000 years ago, and steam
1100. Nay, so early as 10 centuries ago it was known that the differences
between the several chemical and physical forces depend on the mode of
brightest star our great Joseph Jackson. To Jackson we are indebted those
wonderful instruments--the new accumulators. Some of these absorb and
condense the living force contained in the sun's rays; others, the electricity
stored in our globe; others again, energy from whatever source: waterfalls,
streams, wind, etc. He, too, invented the transformer, a more wonderful
contrivance still, which takes the living force from the accumulator, and, at
the touch of a button, returns it to space in any form desired, whether as
heat, light, electricity, or mechanical force, after having first obtained from it
the work required. From the day these two instruments were contrived
should be dated the era of true progress. They have put into the hands of
man almost infinite power. As for their applications, they are numberless.
Mitigating the rigors of winter, by giving back to the atmosphere the surplus
heat stored up during the summer, they have revolutionized agriculture.
Supplying motive power for aerial navigation, they have given to commerce
a mighty impetus. To them we are indebted for the continuous production
of electricity without batteries or dynamos, of light without combustion or
incandescence, and for an unfailing supply of mechanical energy for the