Pic du Midi

The Pic du Midi. On hearing the name of this isolated peak in the Pyrenees range, the general public thinks of the astronomical Observatory. They imagine an archipelago of domes against a mountainous background, with astronomers searching the sky night after night. They do not realize that, in the past, the Observatory was a centre for research in climatology, atmospheric physics, cosmic rays and botany.However, what distinguishes this establishment from other observatories, and what makes its history so interesting, is its location at an altitude of nearly three thousand metres. The ascension was long and dangerous, and, at the summit, daily life was a struggle against cold and isolation. How could anyone accept to live there throughout the entire year? This is the question this book attempts to answer.To reconstruct this history, that of a scientific establishment of course, but above all the history of a human adventure, the author studied public and private archives and had access to the correspondence of the Pic's staff and visitors. He gathered testimony from some of the scientists of the heroic period. Within the framework of his profession, he often shared life at the summit in the cold and the snow, the sleepless nights, the descents in the snow when the cable car broke down. He thus had a privileged insider's view of this surprising and stirring history. However, as a popularizer of science, he was able to present its scientific aspect in simple terms for the general reader.This is the translation of the second, revised, updated and expanded, French edition of this work. The first French edition was awarded the Henri Gaussen Prize of the Académie des sciences, inscriptions et belles-lettres de Toulouse.