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scientist. In 1931-32, he and his twin brother, Jean Félix (1884-1963),
made ascents to 17,000 m/55,000 ft in a balloon of his own design, resulting
in useful discoveries concerning stratospheric phenomena such as cosmic
radiation. He also built and used, with his son Jacques Ernest (1922- ),
bathyscaphs for research under the sea. Auguste Piccard was born and educated in Basel, and joined the balloon section of the Swiss army 1915. From 1922 he was professor of physics at Brussels, Belgium. Jacques Piccard twice, in 1953 and 1960, set a world record with the depth he reached in a bathyscaph. The second time he descended to 10,917 m/35,820 ft in the Mariana Trench near Guam in the Pacific Ocean. |