1884-1962

Swiss Physicist, Inventor, and Explorer

Auguste Antoine Piccard was a Swiss physicist, inventor, and explorer who is famous for being the first, with a partner, to reach the stratosphere in a balloon of his own design. He also invented the bathyscaphe, a submersible capsule, making it possible to reach the lowest point in the ocean.

Auguste and his twin brother, Jean, were born in Basel, Switzerland, on January 28, 1884. Their father was a professor of chemistry at the University of Basel. The brothers followed in their father's scholarly footsteps and attended the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; Auguste completed a degree in physics. Following graduation he remained at the Institute as a professor. In 1919, he married the daughter of a French historian.

Three years later Piccard moved to the University of Brussels, where he accepted a newly created position in the physics department. He...