In the book, it was just an impeller, which is not an exotic idea, but I guess at the time hadn’t been developed as a quiet propulsion system for submarines. In the movie, the caterpillar drive is said to use magnetohydrodynamic propulsion, which was and is much more science-fictional. When Jeffery Jones’s character describes it as “like a jet engine for the water”, that line is taken directly from the book; what he describes is not in any way like a jet engine for the water. (That exchange was what led me to read the book, because I was such a disgusting nerd as a kid)
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