Michel Siffre
Michel Siffre | |
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 Siffre in 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.
He received a postgraduate degree at the Sorbonne six months after completing his baccalauréat. He founded the French Institute of Speleology[importance?] (Institut français de spéléologie) in 1962[1] (not to be confused with the French Federation of Speleology).
Inspired by the
space race, he explored how humans experience time by spending two months cloistered in the abyss of Scarasson (Punta Marguareis) without time cues on a glacier, from July 1962.[2] 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.[3]
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
- ^ "Spelunca Memoires" (PDF). Spelunca Memoires. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
- ^ "Michel Siffre et son horloge de chair". Le Monde. 22 July 2004. Archived from the original on 19 May 2009.
- ^ "Caveman: an interview with Michel Siffre". Cabinet Magazine. No. 30, summer 2008. 2008.
See also
Bibliography
- Schut, Une histoire culturelle de la spéléologie, L’Harmattan.
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