Les Enfants du capitaine Grant
Professor Kokintz in "The Mouse That Roared" by Leonard Wibberley is an example from literature. Professor Branestawm, created in the 1930s by Norman Hunter, is an earlier example of the archetype, and Jacques Paganel from the Jules Verne's 1867 novel "In Search of the Castaways" is probably the codifier of the archetype in the modern literature. Professor Caractacus Potts in the story of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" qualifies as an absent-minded inventor.