Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as an inhabitant of British Colonial India, "is an inhabitant of an oppressed country". Verne took the name "Nautilus" from one of the earliest successful submarines, built in 1800 by Robert Fulton, who later invented the first commercially successful steamboat. Fulton's submarine was named after the paper nautilus because it had a sail. Three years before writing his novel, Jules Verne also studied a model of the newly developed French Navy submarine "Plongeur" at the 1867 Exposition Universelle, which inspired him for his definition of the "Nautilus". The breathing apparatus used by "Nautilus" divers is depicted as an untethered version
Cultural influence of Jules Verne conversational character robot designed and built by him "Jules" in memory of Jules Verne. It is able to speak and respond in a human like manner, based on what it hears and has facial muscles that react to speech. Other scientific figures known to have been influenced by Verne include Fridtjof Nansen, Wernher von Braun, Guglielmo Marconi, and Yuri Gagarin. Arthur Rimbaud was inspired to write his well-known poem "Le Bateau ivre" after reading "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", which he extensively alludes to within the poem; "The Adventures of Captain Hatteras" was likely an additional source of inspiration.