Nautilus

views updated Jun 11 2018

NAUTILUS

NAUTILUS. The Nautilus, a "diving boat" armed with a torpedo, designed and built at Rouen, France, by Robert Fulton, was launched on 24 July 1800. After several successful submersions of it, Fulton submitted his plans for submarine operations against England's navy to Napoleon Bonaparte, who advanced ten thousand francs for repairs and improvements to the Nautilus. Although Fulton blew up a French sloop with the Nautilus, at Brest, 11 August 1801, he dismantled it when Napoleon offered no further encouragement. The U.S. Navy resurrected the name for the first nuclear powered submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus, completed in 1954.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hoyt, Edwin P. From the Turtle to the Nautilus: The Story of Submarines. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963.

Hutcheon, Wallace. Robert Fulton, Pioneer of Undersea Warfare. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1981.

Louis H.Bolander/a. r.

See alsoArms Race and Disarmament ; Submarines ; Torpedo Warfare .

nautilus

views updated May 29 2018

nau·ti·lus / ˈnôtl-əs/ • n. (pl. nau·ti·lus·es or nau·ti·li / ˈnôtl-ī/ ) 1. a cephalopod mollusk with a light external spiral shell and numerous short tentacles around the mouth. Nautiluses swim with the buoyant gas-filled shell upright and descend to greater depths during the day. • Genus Nautilus, the only surviving genus of the subclass Nautiloidea: several species, in particular the common chambered nautilus (Nautilus pompilius) of the Indo-Pacific, with a shell that is white with brownish bands on the outside and lined with mother-of-pearl on the inside. 2. (also paper nautilus) another term for argonaut.

Nautilus

views updated Jun 11 2018

Nau·ti·lus / ˈnôtl-əs/ the first nuclear-powered submarine, launched in 1954. This U.S. Navy vessel made a historic journey (August 1–5, 1958) under the ice of the North Pole. ∎ trademark an exercise machine that matches resistance with output of force.

nautilus

views updated Jun 27 2018

nautilus (chambered nautilus) cephalopod mollusc found in w Pacific and e Indian Oceans at depths down to 200m (660ft). Its large, coiled shell divides into numerous, gas-filled chambers, which give it buoyancy. The foremost chamber contains the body. Its head has 60–90 retractable, thin tentacles without suckers, and it moves by squirting water from a funnel. Shell size c.25cm (10in). Family Nautilidae; genus Nautilus.

Nautilus

views updated May 21 2018

Nautilus ★★ 1999 (R)

In the year 2100, the planet has been destroyed by a series of cataclysisms caused by a scientific experiment, so a scientist decides to go back in time aboard a futuristic submarine in order to change the past and save the future. 90m/C VHS, DVD . Richard Norton, Hannes Jaenicke, Miranda Wolfe; D: Rodney McDonald; W: C. Courtney Joyner; M: David Wurst, Eric Wurst. VIDEO

Nautilus

views updated Jun 08 2018

Nautilus a name given to Robert Fulton's ‘diving boat’ (1800), also to the fictitious submarine in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. It became the name of the first nuclear-powered submarine, launched in 1954.

Nautilus is a Latin word, from Greek nautilos, literally ‘sailor’.

Nautilus

views updated May 17 2018

Nautilus See NAUTILIDA; NAUTILOIDEA.

nautilus

views updated Jun 11 2018

nautilus cephalopod which has webbed dorsal arms formerly believed to be used as sails. XVII. — L. — Gr. nautilos sailor, nautilus, f. naútēs (see prec.).