Professor Calculus

Professor Cuthbert Calculus (Professeur Tryphon Tournesol, literally Professor Tryphonius Sunflower) is a fictional character in the series The Adventures of Tintin. He's a distracted, hard-of-hearing professor, who invented many objects used in the series, such as a one-person shark-shaped submarine, the Moon rocket and an ultrasound weapon. Calculus first appeared in Red Rackham's Treasure, and was the end result of Hergé's long quest to find the archetypal mad scientist or absent-minded professor: for instance, Dr. Sarcophagus in Cigars of the Pharaoh, and Prof. Alembick in King Ottokar's Sceptre.

Character

Calculus seeks to benefit mankind by inventions such as a pill that cures alcoholism by making alcohol taste horrible to the patient. These inventions are usually disliked by Captain Haddock, although Calculus usually interprets this the other way round: his deafness often preventing him from hearing Haddock's real opinion. However if he ever hears the Captain (or anyone else) call him a "goat", or, more famously in Destination Moon, "acting the goat", he flies into a rage: "Goat, am I?", he roars, and the previously mild-mannered Calculus sets about breaking every security rule in the book to show off the moon rocket he has worked on for months, "acting the goat". Ever since the first time Calculus went into a fit of rage in response to this statement, it has become a very well known phrase in the Tintin series. Calculus displays an almost super-human strength during his rages, for example in "Destination Moon", a security personnel blocks his passage and is promptly hung on a clothes hook by Calculus. Also, Calculus beats the stuffing out of millionaire tycoon Carreidas after a misunderstanding in "Flight 714". Calculus's deafness is a frequent source of humour, as he repeats back what he thinks he has heard, usually in the most unlikely words possible: "attachez votre ceinture" (fasten your belt) is repeated as "une tache de peinture?" (a paint stain). He presumably finds this a useful handicap since it enables him to focus on his work, even if it is a source of frustration to his friends. He himself does not admit to being near-deaf and insists on having poor hearing in only one ear. In the course of the "Moon" books, however, Calculus is part of a team of scientists and engineers working on a major rocket project so he adopts a hearing aid and for the duration of the adventure has near-perfect hearing. This made him a more serious character, even displaying previously unshown leadership qualities (that is, as long as the word "goat" was not uttered in his presence). However, in later adventures, Calculus discarded his hearing aid and went back to his old deaf self (aside from a scene in The Castafiore Emerald when Tintin insists he use it in order to clarify some misunderstanding during the TV broadcast). In spite of all this, his friends stick by him come what may. Haddock invited him to stay at Marlinspike Hall after Calculus had bought it in his name thanks to money he had earned through selling the patent for his shark-submarine in Red Rackham's Treasure. Tintin and Haddock crossed the world on at least two occasions (Prisoners of the Sun and The Calculus Affair) in order to save him from kidnappers. Calculus is a fervent believer in dowsing, and carries a pendulum for that purpose. Calculus occasionally comments that he was a great sportsman in his youth, with a very athletic lifestyle. He is a former practitioner of the French martial art savate, although a demonstration in Flight 714 shows him to be a bit rusty.

Calculus and His Fellows

Calculus first appeared in Red Rackham's Treasure and was the end result of Hergé's long quest to find the archetypal mad or absent-minded professor. These had included highly-educated but eccentric scholars and scientists such as:

• Dr. Sarcophagus of Cigars of the Pharaoh who showed signs of being clumsy and forgetful before going completely mad.
• The absent-minded professor who appeared in The Broken Ear and who forgot his glasses, wore his cleaning-lady's overcoat, held his cane upside-down as if it were an umbrella and mistook a parrot for a man. (In the original edition published in 1935 his name is given as Professor Euclide, after the Greek mathematician known as the "Father of Geometry".)
• Professor Nestor Alembick in King Ottokar's Sceptre had a bad habit of throwing his cigarettes on the floor.
• Two astronomers from The Shooting Star also showed unusual and, in one case, mad behaviour: Philippulus the Prophet represented the dilemmas some face over religious belief and scientific research. In his case the conflict took a toll on his mind when the end-of-the-world appeared to be imminent. He then went around wearing bedsheets and beating a gong to warn of the event and later disrupted the eve of departure of the expedition sent to find a meteorite.
• His colleague, Professor Decimus Phostle, though not as crazy, looked forward to the end of the world whose prediction he thought would make him famous ! But he did show signs of maturity during the expedition when he called off the search for the meteorite in order to help a ship in distress.

Calculus' introduction appears to have supplied Hergé with all the bizarre nature he needed for a man of science. Other figures of high education were shown as more stable and level-headed. The members of the expedition who fall victim to The Seven Crystal Balls show no apparent signs of eccentricity, Calculus' friend Hercules Tarragon being simply a jovial and friendly character perhaps unaware of his own strength. Equally simple in their behaviour are Baxter and Frank Wolff of the Moon adventures and Professor Topolino of The Calculus Affair.

In other media

Calculus demonstrates the benefit his Fruit d'or cooking oil to Nestor the butler

Calculus' original French name was "Tournesol" which is the French for sunflower. In the 1970s and 80s, he starred in a series of cartoon television commercials for Fruit d'or products which included cooking oil and mayonnaise made from sunflower oil. Some of the ads would conclude with him floating up into the air to demonstrate how they kept a good healthy balance. Other characters from the books were also included [1]. His name was used in naming an album by Stephen Duffy and the group Tin Tin, which was called "Dr. Calculus".

Auguste Piccard – The Real Calculus

In The Castafiore Emerald, Bianca Castafiore perhaps mistakes Calculus for Auguste Piccard (1884 – 1962) in claiming that Calculus is "famous for his balloon ascensions". This connection was confirmed by Hergé in an interview with Numa Sadoul: "Calculus is a reduced scale Piccard, as the real chap was very tall. He had an interminable neck that sprouted from a collar that was much too large... I made Calculus a mini-Piccard, otherwise I would have had to enlarge the frames of the cartoon strip." ^[1] The Swiss physics professor held a teaching appointment in Brussels where Hergé spotted his unmistakable figure in the street.

In other languages

• Arabic: Professor Bergel.
• Catalan: Silvestre Tornassol.
• Danish: Professor Tournesol.
• Dutch: Professor Zonnebloem.
• Finnish: Teophilus Tuhatkauno.
• German: Balduin Bienlein.
• Icelandic: Prófessor Vandráður.
• Italian: Professor Tornasole.
• Portuguese: Trifólio Girassol.
• Spanish: Silvestre Tornasol.
• Swedish: Karl Kalkyl.
• Turkish: Profesör Turnusol.

References

1. ^ Horeau , Yves The Adventures of Tintin at Sea 1999, English translation 2004 for the National Maritime Museum, Published by John Maurray , ISBN 0719561191 . Chapter on Outside characters drawn into the Adventures.