Becquerel, Antoine Henri

Born Dec. 15, 1852, in Paris; died Aug. 25, 1908, at Le Croisic. French physicist. Member of the Académie des Sciences (1889). Son of Alexandre Edmond Becquerel.

Becquerel graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. He was a professor at the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris (1892) and at the Ecole Polytechnique (1895). His works were devoted to optics, electricity, magnetism, photochemistry, electrochemistry, and meteorology. In 1896, Becquerel detected radioactive radiation from uranium salts while studying the ability of various luminescent substances to effect changes in a photographic plate through an opaque barrier. Subsequent study of such radiation by M. Curie and P. Curie led to the discovery of radioactivity. Becquerel shared the 1903 Nobel prize in physics with the Curies.