Jules Verne became famous for his inspired writing about science and technology, which earned him a place of honor among science fiction writers. However, the beauty of his stories is not only the technical details, but the relationship between man and society and the engineering innovations and scientific discoveries he described in great detail
David Polishuk
Jules Verne became famous for his inspired writing about science and technology, which earned him a place of honor among science fiction writers. However, the beauty of his stories is not just the technical details, but the connection between man and society and the engineering innovations and scientific discoveries he described in great detail. A good example of this is his book "The Hunters of the Meteors", which was published in 1908, three years after his death, and after it was passed on to be written by his son, Michel. In the book, Vern examines the human reactions to the appearance of a new celestial object - a meteor made entirely of gold.
With wit and affection, Vern describes the desire for publicity, fame and wealth of individuals and countries, the greatness and nothingness of scientists and bankers, and the shallowness and passions that drive the press and the general public.
Dean Forsyth and Sidney Hedelson are amateur astronomers living in a small town in Virginia, an example of a typical American town. Both are respected in their community, serious people and family men, and it won't be far today that the daughter of one will marry the nephew of the other and the two will be relatives. But when they discover a new meteor in the night sky - each separately and at the exact same time - the family idyll disappears and jealousy overtakes both of them, as each wants the meteor to be named after him.
The excitement of the heroes of the story is incomprehensible to those who know nothing about today's astronomy, because every dark night you can easily see meteors, dust particles from space that burn up in the atmosphere when they fall to earth. But Verne's meteor is what is known today as an asteroid - a body whose size ranges from tens of meters to hundreds of kilometers and is made of stone or iron. At the time the story was written, only about 500 asteroids were known, and their discoverers were honored to call them by name, so the jealousy between the heroes of the story has something to base it on. Although about 200 asteroids are known today, the competition between astronomers remains, and clear laws determine who is entitled to give a name to a new asteroid, so the main line of the plot is still relevant today.
The private feud between Forsyth and Hedelson soon divides the town's skeptical residents, who are less interested in astronomy and more in a hate-filled confrontation like the loyal viewers of a modern reality show. The two even go to court in order to determine who is the legal owner of the body floating so far out of their reach (and it's not for nothing that the story takes place in America). On the other hand, the scientific community dismisses the idle debate between the two - until spectroscopic observations (which only began to be used towards the end of the 19th century) indicate that the space body is made entirely of gold.
Verne's amiable, and not so realistic, speculation takes off at this point in the story, when his weight shifts from the sciences of astronomy to economic calculations. New players enter the plot. A genius and confused French inventor named Zephirdin Cassirdel manages to build a simple (and completely imaginary) device that deflects the asteroid from its orbit in order to smash it on Earth. This huge amount of gold will decrease the value of the mineral by one and will give an advantage to the uncle of the inventor, a shrewd Parisian banker, in his business on the stock exchange. The banker buys a remote area of land in Greenland and the inventor secretly directs the asteroid there, to the astonishment of scientists from all over the world who do not understand how the golden body moves in apparent complete opposition to the laws of physics and mechanics.
But as soon as the asteroid falls to earth and stands on a cliff above the ocean water, the madness spreads quickly: world leaders convene an international conference to decide what to do with the gold, the press goes out of its way with lots of speculation and explosive headlines, gold prices on the stock exchange plummet, and adventurers and the curious from all over the world flock to the frozen northern island. When the French inventor and his banker uncle claim in the ears of the masses that the gold that fell on their land belongs only to them, no one listens to them and the tension reaches its peak. Vern, it turns out, predicts that humanity will not be able to act in cooperation and for the common good in order to take advantage of technological developments and scientific progress, and predicts a rather bleak future for us.
But "Meteor Hunters" is an entertaining and humorous story with a good ending. Cassirdal, a fundamentally innocent man, is due to the actions of his hands, which indirectly caused threatening warships to anchor off the coast, and worse, raised the hatred between the two American astronomers to such high levels that the expected wedding between their relatives is in danger of being cancelled. And what are wealth and power compared to love and friendship? Cassirdel points his wonder device at the asteroid and causes it to fall into the deep water. And when the reason for the quarrel no longer exists - everything returns to its place in peace, and gloomy astronomical predictions give way to a calm and carefree reality.
David Polishok is a research student in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences and in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Tel Aviv University, an astronomer at the Wise Observatory in Mitzpe Ramon. His research deals with the small planets: asteroids, comets, meteors and meteorites, and includes discoveries of new bodies, learning their nature and their effect on the Earth.
