Auguste Piccard - References in Popular Media

References in Popular Media

• Auguste Piccard was the inspiration for Professor Cuthbert Calculus in The Adventures of Tintin by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Piccard held a teaching appointment in Brussels where Hergé spotted his unmistakable figure in the street.

This connection was confirmed by Hergé in an interview with Numa Sadoul.

"Calculus is a reduced scale Piccard, as the real chap was very tall. He had an interminable neck that sprouted from a collar that was much too large... I made Calculus a mini-Piccard, otherwise I would have had to enlarge the frames of the cartoon strip."

• Gene Roddenberry named Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek after one or both of the twin brothers Auguste and Jean Felix Piccard, and derived Jean-Luc Picard from their names.

• Will Gregory's opera, Piccard in Space, premiered at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on 31 March 2011. The libretto, by Hattie Naylor, focuses on Auguste Piccard's first balloon assent with his assistant Paul Kipfer, and on the theories of Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton, who both appear as characters in the drama. The reviews were generally hostile.