Michel Siffre
Michel Siffre | |
|---|---|
 Michel Siffre on 27-5-2009 at Saint-Benoît | |
| Born | 3 January 1939 Nice, France |
| Occupation | Scientist |
Michel Siffre (born 3 January 1939) is a French underground explorer, adventurer and scientist. He was born in Nice, where he spent his childhood. At just 10 years of age, he explored the Imperial Cave Park, and discovered a passion for caving.
He received a postgraduate degree at the Sorbonne six months after completing his baccalauréat. His many achievements include the creation of the French Institute of Speleology in 1962.[citation needed]
Main achievements
- In his youth, he became interested in the space race and decided to find a way to contribute. Imagining situations faced by astronauts, he noticed that some of them could play in a deep cave. This motivated him to start his experiments.
- The experience of time, two months cloistered in the abyss of Scarasson without time cues on a glacier, from July 1962.[1] He then organized several similar underground experiments for other speleologists. In 1972, Siffre went back underground for a six-month stay in a cave in Texas. He found that without time cues, several people including himself adjusted to a 48-hour rather than a 24-hour cycle.[2]
- The notes of his experiments were used by NASA. Several astronauts reported experiences similar to those experienced in underground experiments such as loss of short-term memory to being isolated from external time references.
Publications
- Hors du temps. L'expérience du 16 juillet 1962 au fond du gouffre de Scarasson par celui qui l'a vécue, Julliard, 1963
- Des merveilles sous la terre, Hachette, cop. 1976
- Stalactites, stalagmites, cop. 1984
- L'or des gouffres: découvertes dans les jungles mayas, Flammarion, 1979
- Dans les abîmes de la terre, Flammarion, 1975
- La France des grottes et cavernes, Privat, 1999
- A la recherche de l'art des cavernes du pays Maya, A. Lefeuvre, 1979
- Découvertes dans les grottes mayas, Arthaud, 1993
- Beyond Time, Translated by Herma Briffault, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1964
Notes and references
- ^ Michel Siffre et son horloge de chair Archived 19 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Le Monde, 22 July 2004
- ^ Caveman: an interview with Michel Siffre Cabinet Magazine #30, summer 2008
See also
Bibliography
- Schut, Une histoire culturelle de la spéléologie, L’Harmattan.
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