Editing Mark Twain (section)

===Love of science and technology===
[[File:Twain in Tesla's Lab.jpg|thumb|Twain in the laboratory of [[Nikola Tesla]], early 1894]]
[[File:Mark Twain at Stormfield (1909).webm|thumb|right|thumbtime=0:50|[[:File:Mark Twain at Stormfield (1909).webm|''Mark Twain at Stormfield'']] (1909)]]

Twain was fascinated with science and scientific inquiry. He developed a close and lasting friendship with [[Nikola Tesla]], and the two spent much time together in Tesla's laboratory.<ref>{{cite web |title=Unexpected Futurist: Mark Twain, Tesla, and a Vision of a Worldwide Visual Telephone System The 2030 Team |url=https://medium.com/@paul_75346/unexpected-futurist-mark-twain-tesla-and-a-vision-of-a-worldwide-visual-telephone-system-46dff6759789 |website=Medium |date=April 22, 2020 |access-date=July 7, 2023 |archive-date=July 10, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230710081234/https://medium.com/@paul_75346/unexpected-futurist-mark-twain-tesla-and-a-vision-of-a-worldwide-visual-telephone-system-46dff6759789 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Twain patented three inventions, including an "Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments" (to replace [[suspenders]]) and a history trivia game.<ref name=USPTO>{{cite web |url=https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/mark-twain-granted-his-first-patent-december-19-1871|title=Mark Twain Granted His First Patent on December 19, 1871 |publisher=[[United States Patent and Trademark Office]]|date=December 18, 2001|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201016162108/https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/mark-twain-granted-his-first-patent-december-19-1871|archive-date=October 16, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | last=Niemann | first=Paul J. | title=Invention Mysteries (Invention Mysteries Series) | date= 2004| publisher=Horsefeathers Publishing Company | isbn=0-9748041-0-X | pages=53–54 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TFjBk0tn9A4C&pg=PA52}}</ref> Most commercially successful was a self-pasting scrapbook; a dried adhesive on the pages needed only to be moistened before use.<ref name=USPTO/> More than 25,000 were sold.<ref name=USPTO/>

Twain made fun of the map making process in his "Map of Paris" from 1870.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1870 |title=Mark Twain's Map of Paris [explanation] |url=https://digital.library.cornell.edu/catalog/ss:19343172 |access-date=2025-03-26 |website=digital.library.cornell.edu |language=en}}</ref>

Twain was an early proponent of [[fingerprint]]ing as a forensic technique, featuring it in a [[tall tale]] in ''[[Life on the Mississippi]]'' (1883) and as a central plot element in the novel ''[[Pudd'nhead Wilson]]'' (1894).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rutten |first=Tim |date=2008-10-18 |title=The LAPD flunks fingerprinting |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-oct-18-oe-rutten18-story.html |access-date=2024-06-05 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US |archive-date=June 5, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240605040345/https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-oct-18-oe-rutten18-story.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Preschel |first=Dr Lewis |date=2011-06-06 |title=Fingerprints 103: Mark Twain's Prescience and Crime's Penmen |url=https://www.criminalelement.com/fingerprints-103-mark-twains-prescience-and-crimes-penmen/ |access-date=2024-06-05 |website=Criminal Element |language=en-US |archive-date=June 5, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240605040349/https://www.criminalelement.com/fingerprints-103-mark-twains-prescience-and-crimes-penmen/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Twain's novel ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]'' (1889) features a [[time travel]]er from the contemporary U.S., using his knowledge of science to introduce modern technology to [[King Arthur|Arthurian]] England. This type of historical manipulation became a trope of speculative fiction as [[alternate history|alternate histories]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Carver |first=Ben |title=Earliness and Lateness: Alternate History in American Literature |date=2017 |work=Alternate Histories and Nineteenth-Century Literature: Untimely Meditations in Britain, France, and America |pages=207–259 |editor-last=Carver |editor-first=Ben |url=https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57334-6_6 |access-date=2024-06-05 |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-57334-6_6 |isbn=978-1-137-57334-6}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Collins |first=William J. |date=1986 |title=Hank Morgan in the Garden of Forking Paths: "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" as Alternative History |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26281854 |journal=Modern Fiction Studies |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=109–114 |jstor=26281854 |issn=0026-7724 |access-date=June 5, 2024 |archive-date=June 5, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240605040827/https://www.jstor.org/stable/26281854 |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1909, [[Thomas Edison]] visited Twain at [[Stormfield]], his home in [[Redding, Connecticut]], and filmed him. Part of the footage was used in ''The Prince and the Pauper'' (1909), a two-reel short film. It is the only known existing film footage of Twain.<ref>{{Citation|title=The Only Footage of Mark Twain in Existence|publisher=Smithsonian.com|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-only-footage-of-mark-twain-in-existence-13605003/access-date=April 13, 2024|archive-date=January 16, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116152007/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/arts-culture/the-only-footage-of-mark-twain-in-existence/|url-status=live}}</ref>