How children’s book inspired the Taser

Was the Taser invented 100 years ago?

THE Taser was invented by US aerospace engineer Jack Cover. It was in response to a 1965 study commissioned by then US president Lyndon B Johnson, entitled The Challenge Of Crime In A Free Society. It called for innovative techniques for disabling unruly citizens.

Cover created a device that shot out a pair of electrodes tethered to a gun through small wires. They delivered a highvoltage pulse of electricity which could incapacitate without killing.

He named it after an adventure novel from his childhood called Tom Swift And His Electric Rifle. From the initials of the title, Cover made ‘Taser’.

Tom Swift And His Electric Rifle was published in 1911, over a century ago, under the pen name Victor Appleton.

This tale set in Africa was not exactly PC; one line has Tom saying: ‘Elephant shooting in Africa! My! With my new electric rifle... what a fellow couldn’t do in the dark continent!’

The original Taser’s propellant was gunpowder. An ‘advanced’ model using compressed nitrogen instead was released in 1999. Peter Smith, Durham.

Have there been many instances of the viewing public accidentally damaging valuable artworks?

FURTHER to earlier answers, during the Nineties I escorted groups to Cairo, and one day a tourist appeared swathed in bandages.

I later learned the gentleman, who was unsteady on his feet owing to a previous accident, had fallen into and shattered one of the glass display cabinets at the Tutankhamun exhibition in the Cairo Museum. The exhibit was not damaged, but none of the group was allowed to leave Cairo until the cost of the damage was paid.

Richard Kimble, Norfolk.