Professor Cuthbert Calculus (, meaning "Professor
Tryphon Sunflower"), is a fictional character and one of the
protagonist in
The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist
Hergé. He is
Tintin's friend, an
absent-minded professor and half-deaf
physicist, who invents many sophisticated devices used in the series, such as a one-person
shark-shaped submarine, the
Moon rocket, and an
ultrasound weapon. 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. He does not admit to being near-deaf and insists he is only a little hard of hearing in one ear.