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Henri BecquerelHenri Becquerel
born Dec. 15, 1852, Paris, France
died Aug. 25, 1908, Le Croisic

Full name, Antoine-Henri Becquerel. French physicist who discovered radioactivity through his investigations of uranium and other substances. In 1903 he shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with Pierre and Marie Curie.

He was a member of a scientific family extending through several generations, the most notable being his grandfather Antoine-Cesar Becquerel (1788­1878), his father, Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel (1820­91), and his son Jean Becquerel (1878­1953).

After his early schooling at the Lycee Louis-le-Grand, Henri received his formal scientific education at the Ecole Polytechnique (1872­74) and engineering training at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées (Bridges and Highways School; 1874­77). In addition to his teaching and research posts, Becquerel was for many years an engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways, being appointed chief engineer in 1894. His first academic situation was in 1876 as assistant teacher at the École Polytechnique, where in 1895 he succeeded to the chair of physics. Concurrently, he was assistant naturalist to his father at the museum, where he also assumed the physics professorship upon his father's death.

Electricity, magnetism, optical phenomena, and energy were major areas of physical investigation during the 19th century. For several years the young man's research was concerned with the rotation of plane-polarized light by magnetic fields, a subject opened by Michael Faraday and to which Henri's father had also contributed. Henri then concerned himself with infrared radiation, examining, among other things, the spectra of different phosphorescent crystals under infrared stimulation. Of particular significance, he extended the work of his father by studying the relation between absorption of light and emission of phosphorescence in some uranium compounds.

By 1896 Henri was an accomplished and respected physicist‹a member of the Academie des Sciences since 1889‹but more important than his research thus far were his expertise with phosphorescent materials, his familiarity with uranium compounds, and his general skill in laboratory techniques, including photography. Together, these were to place the discovery of radioactivity within his reach.

Returning to the field he had created, Becquerel made three more important contributions. One was to measure, in 1899 and 1900, the deflection of beta particles, which are a constituent of the radiation in both electric and magnetic fields. From the charge to mass value thus obtained, he showed that the beta particle was the same as Joseph John Thomson's recently identified electron. Another discovery was the circumstance that the allegedly active substance in uranium, uranium X, lost its radiating ability in time, while the uranium, though inactive when freshly prepared, eventually regained its lost radioactivity. When Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy found similar decay and regeneration in thorium X and thorium, they were led to the transformation theory of radioactivity, which explained the phenomenon as a subatomic chemical change in which one element spontaneously transmutes into another. Becquerel's last major achievement concerned the physiological effect of the radiation. Others may have noticed this before him, but his report in 1901 of the burn caused when he carried an active sample of the Curies' radium in his vest pocket inspired investigation by physicians, leading ultimately to medical use.

For his discovery of radioactivity, Becquerel shared the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics with the Curies; he was also honoured with other medals and memberships in foreign societies. His own Academy of Sciences elected him its president and one of its permanent secretaries.



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