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Michel Siffre

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French scientist (1939–2024)

Michel Siffre
Siffre in 2009
Born(1939-01-03)3 January 1939
Nice, France
Died25 August 2024(2024-08-25) (aged 85)
Nice, France
Occupation(s)Scientist, Geologist

Michel Augustin Francis Siffre (3 January 1939 – 25 August 2024) was a French underground explorer, adventurer and scientist.

Life and career

Siffre 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 (Institut français de spéléologie) in 1962 (not to be confused with the French Federation of Speleology).

Véronique Le Guen [fr] and Michel Siffre

Inspired by the space race, he explored how humans experience time by spending two months cloistered 130 meters below the surface in the abyss of Scarasson (Punta Marguareis) without time cues on a glacier, from July 1962. He then organized several similar underground experiments for other speleologists. In 1972, Siffre went back underground for a six-month stay in a Midnight Cave in Texas. He found that without time cues, several people including himself adjusted to a 48-hour rather than a 24-hour cycle. 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. His final excursion in a cave ran from November 1999 to February 2000; he celebrated the New Year there, but missed the actual date by four days.

Siffre died from pneumonia in Nice on 25 August 2024, at the age of 85.

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

  1. ^ Risen, Clay (24 September 2024). "Michel Siffre, 85, Who Studied Mind From the Depths of Caves". The New York Times. p. B11. Retrieved 24 September 2024.
  2. "Spelunca Memoires" (PDF). Spelunca Memoires. Retrieved 14 April 2023.
  3. Burke, Olivia (29 April 2024). "Man who lived in cave with no concept of time ended up experiencing unbelievable effect on his body clock". LADbible. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  4. "Michel Siffre et son horloge de chair". Le Monde. 22 July 2004. Archived from the original on 19 May 2009.
  5. Damien Dubuc (5 May 2017). "Michel Siffre : « Sous terre sans repère, c'est le cerveau qui crée le temps »". Le Monde.fr (in French). Retrieved 28 April 2018..
  6. "Caveman: an interview with Michel Siffre". Cabinet Magazine. No. 30, summer 2008. 2008.
  7. Addio a Michel Siffre, pioniere degli esperimenti di isolamento (in Italian)

See also

Bibliography

  • Schut, Une histoire culturelle de la spéléologie, L’Harmattan.
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