Introduction
Rolex
Geneva understood before 1950 that a market was developing
for Dive Watches but its entry into The Market Place
had to be spectacular and linked with Historic Achievements.
The Piccard Family played an important part in the future
direction of Rolex Geneva and it is only correct that
their history should be a part of any article on the
Deep Sea Special.
The
Piccard Family
Auguste
Piccard (physicist, aeronaut, ballonist, hydronaut)
Jacques Piccard (hydronaut)
Bertrand Piccard (aeronaut, ballonist)
Jean-Felix
Piccard (organic chemist, aeronaut, and ballonist)
Jeannette Piccard (wife of) (aeronaut and ballonist)
Don Piccard (balloonist)
We are all
familiar with Royal Family sagas and Banking Dynasties,
but never before has a single family so dominated the
World of Exploration as Auguste, Jacques and Bertrand
Piccard. They have been inventing and exploring for
3 generations.
According
to the French Association Jules Verne Adventures: "Only
the lunar astronauts can rival the Paccar’s in
symbolizing mankind's 20th century scientific and human
spirit of adventure, as inspired by Jules Verne".
The conquest
of the stratosphere and the deepest ocean, the first
flight around the world in a balloon - such is the stuff
of legend, of Captain Nemo and Phileas Fogg.
The Piccard
family is noted for undertaking challenges. Jacques'
father Auguste Piccard twice beat the record for reaching
the highest altitude in a balloon, in 1931-32. Jacques'
son Bertrand Piccard was the first person to fly around
the world nonstop with the balloon "Orbiter 3"
in March 1999.
Auguste
Antoine Piccard (January 28, 1884 – March 24,
1962)
Auguste
Piccard, born on January 28, 1884 in Basel, Switzerland,
was professor of physics at the Swiss Institute of Technology
in Zurich and then at the University of Brussels. Friend
of Albert Einstein and Marie Curie, he made possible
modern aviation and space exploration by inventing The
Pressurized Cabin and The Stratospheric Balloon.
He made the
first ascents into the stratosphere in 1931 and 1932,
reaching heights of 15,781 metres and 16,201 metres
respectively, to study cosmic rays. He became the first
man to witness the curvature of the Earth with his own
eyes.
Applying
the principle of his stratospheric balloon to the exploration
of the deepest oceans, he built a revolutionary submarine,
which he named the Bathyscaphe. Diving with his son,
Jacques to 3150 metres in 1953, he became the man of
both extremes: having flown the highest and dived the
deepest.
Meanwhile,
his twin brother, Jean, had emigrated to the United
States where he had become a chemistry professor, and
with his wife Jeanette made another ascent into the
stratosphere. Jean's son, Donald, continued the aeronautic
tradition by pioneering the revival of hot-air ballooning
in the 1960s.
Auguste Piccard,
Commander of the Legion of Honour and the Order of Leopold,
was famous for spectacular inventions but he was also
a scientist of universal scope. His thesis in physics
concerned the magnetization of water. He identified
Uranium 235, which he called "Actinuran."
An experiment
he conducted in a balloon, proved part of Einstein's
Theory of Relativity which had been called into question.
He constructed the most precise scales, galvanometers
and seismographs of his era.
His obsession
with exactitude earned him the nickname of "the
extra decimal place".
Jacques
Piccard
Born
in Brussels on July 28, 1922, Jacques Piccard initially
studied economics. His contacts with the business world
helped to raise funds for his father's second bathyscaphe.
Jacques
then changed his career and worked with his father to
build what was to become the bathyscaphe Trieste. Diving
with Auguste, he broke numerous records before himself
capturing the World Record for the deepest ever dive,
7 miles down to the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
After
his father's death, he continued the family mission constructing
four mesoscaphes - submersibles designed for medium depths.
These were:
The
Auguste Piccard, the world's first passenger submarine.
At the 1964 Swiss National Exhibition in Lausanne, she
took 33,000 tourists to the depths of Lake Geneva.
The
Ben Franklin, with which Jacques explored the Gulf Stream
in 1969, drifting 3000km in a dive that lasted a month.
The
F.-A. Forel, an easily transportable pocket-submersible,
in which Jacques made more than 2000 scientific and educational
dives in European lakes and in the Mediterranean.
The
PX-44, prototype of a new-generation passenger submarine,
designed for series production.
Founder
and Chairman of the Foundation for the Study and Protection
of Seas and Lakes, based in Cully, Switzerland, Jacques
has a highly creative mind like his father.
In
addition to those that were built, he also produced several
dozen other designs for scientific and industrial applications,
which unfortunately failed to be realized for lack of
finance.
Pioneers
are always ahead of their time…..thus it is no wonder
that Rolex wanted to be associated with The Piccard Family.
©BJSOnline.com,
2006.
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