A Submarine Story

I met a grad student who had just showed his new invention to famous Professor X. “Look what a nice car I have construed!”

“Fine”, replied Professor X, “but why isn't also a submarine?”

Fortunately, I work on submarines myself. So I had the opportunity to talk to Professor X in more detail about his pet topic.

“Did you hear of the new type of submarine that Dr. Y developed? What do you think?”, I began.

Probably there was a bit too much appreciation for Y's work in my voice, because Professor X suddenly looked a bit grim.

“It is not a real submarine. Dr. Y claims that it is superior to existing boats because it has all these nice features and frills. But a submarine is a submarine because it is diving. And Y's submarine needs to get to the surface in shorter intervals than existing types.”

“True, this is a disadvantage”, I replied, “but it may be more than compensated by its advantages in terms of mobility, firepower, and so on.”

Professor X was a principled person, however. “How are you ever going to convince the commander of a destroyer that submarines are a superior weapon if you surface as often as the captain goes for a pee? Aren't you just incoherent?” And he looked at me with a fiery stare.

Then he switched on one of the big screens in his office, which broadcast the launching of a submarine in a dockyard.

“Dr. Y's submarine is no submarine”, he shouted. “THIS is a submarine”, he said and proudly pointed toward the screen.

I felt I had heard these words before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv3fcwx2TUY

The submarine which I saw---evidently Professor X's newest invention---was as big as a medium-sized battleship. It reminded me of the spaceship “Götterdämmerung” in the legendary Finnish-German trash Nazi comedy “Iron Sky”.

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziVpqh9UXmI

When the submarine was released into the water, Professor X beamed with delight. “Constructed according to the principles I have developed in 30 years of fundamental research.”

At some point, the submarine suddenly stopped moving. Slowly, very slowly, it started to sink on the ground, out of control of the crew.

“Did you make sure that your submarine can actually swim?”, I dared to ask.

“Who are you to ask such things!”, Professor X yelled at me. “My submarine possesses in theory the optimal submarining properties! This is just bad luck, sloppy engineers, whatever!”

I made sure I quickly left the office and pondered upon naval warfare, Nazis on the back side of the moon, and a new career in rocket science.