Born into an academic family in Basel, on January 28, 1884, the Swiss scientist Auguste Antoine Piccard he was educated in his hometown and at the Zurich Polytechnic.
From 1907 he was a professor in Zurich. Piccard He was very interested in aviation, and studied the behavior of balloons. In 1922 he moved to the University of Brussels, as a professor of physics, where he remained until 1954 (except during the war years, which he spent in Switzerland).
His desire was to investigate the physics of the stratosphere, a region that was beyond the scope of the range of instruments available until the advent of electronics and continuous monitoring from the ground.
Supported by the Belgian Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique foundation, in 1930 Piccard designed a hydrogen balloon with an airtight cabin to carry an observer into the stratosphere. With this ball (called the FNRS) in 1931 and 1932 it reached record levels of over 50,000 feet. This was a new era of open scientific exploration. Lack of funds prevented their participation in other flights.
In 1937 Piccard focused on deep-sea exploration and developed the bathyscaphe, the underwater analog of his stratospheric balloon. Aided again by the Belgian foundation, he began his work, but was interrupted by the war. This is how the first bathyscaphe, FNRS 2, was not finished until 1948. It consisted of a strong spherical molded steel capsule with Plexiglas windows, supported by a light float filled with oil. As in an air balloon, the vertical movement was controlled by the release of ballast or support fluid. It was submerged on the outskirts of Dakar in 1948, they demonstrated the usefulness of the system.
In 1950 the bathyscaphe was transferred to the French navy and a new one was built, the FNRS 3. Initially, under the direction of Piccard, the pressure capsule and much essential FNRS 2 equipment were used. But difficulties with the French and contacts made in Italy by Piccard’s son Jacques led to the construction of a third bathyscaphe, the Trieste, with Swiss funds. and Italians between 1952 and 1953.
Essentially similar to the previous ones, the new bathyscaphe had many improvements, including a forged steel capsule. A successful dive of more than 10,000 feet took place off Capri in 1953.
However, a shortage of funds hampered the investigation until 1957, when it received support from the United States Navy. After evaluation, the Trieste was bought and shipped to San Diego. In 1960, with a reinforced observation capsule and increased buoyancy, the bathyscaphe plunged 35,800 feet to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in Guam’s Mariana Trench, the deepest hole in the known world.
Since 1954 Piccard He was in active retirement in Lausanne, where he died on March 24, 1962. Most of Trieste’s work was directed by his son Jacques piccard, after 1953.