Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Anyone still out there?

[Michael B Holt <tlohm@juno.com>]

On Fri, 18 Oct 2002 13:56:30 -0500 David Buchner <buchner@wcta.net>
writes:
>
>For myself, submarines are one of the last things on my mind these 
>days. Here in central Minnesota, we've just gotten our first sticking 
>snow of the season. There's a skin of ice on my goldfish pond. I've 
>gone to catch-up reading of this list once or twice a week.

I saw the front of a tabloid, in the supermarket this morning, and I
see that an Iraqi submarine is in Lake Michigan.   The photo looks
like  Kilo. 

>Nifty coincidence -- Mike (I think it was Mike) mentioned somebody 
>working out the size of Verne's Nautilus. 

That was me.   I wrote a program to experiment with the sizes
and shapes of the hull.  I stumbled across one set of dimensions
that gives exactly the correct displacement for one translation
of the book.   I'm working on the other translations now.

>I just happened to be 
>reading this morning a review of this Miller/Walter translation ( 
>http://www.troynovant.com/Stoddard/Verne/20000-Leagues-Under-Sea.html) 

Yes!    I need to get that one.   

>>previous versions omitted over 20% of the French text, including 
>>important passages of technical detail, such as Captain Nemo's 
>>account of the batteries used on the Nautilus (Bunsen batteries, a 
>>type of wet primary cell actually used at the time, but operating at 
>>higher voltage due to the replacement of zinc with sodium in one 
>>electrode) and Professor Arronax's questions to Nemo about the 
>>thermodynamics of his power source.

Miller wrote an annotated "20,000 Leagues" a few years ago.   I have
that.   It's very good, and it fills in the blanks left by the age of the
book
and social changes since then in addition to restoring the numbers so
it all makes sense.  

>...and I sure didn't remember about the retractable conning towers, 
>but maybe that's just because I haven't read it recently.

Those retractable conning towers are a fascinating addition.    From
the book, it seems like only the forward one retracts, but it's been
a while since I read that.



Mike H.


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