Henri Becquerel
Henri Becquerel, a French physicist, was born in Paris on December 15, 1852. His grandfather, Antoine-Cesar Becquerel, had fought at the battle of Waterloo in 1815 and later earned a considerable reputation as a physicist. He made important contributions to the study of electrochemistry, meteorology, and agriculture. Henri father, Alexander-Edmond Becquerel, also made a name for himself in science. His research-included studies on photography, heat, and the conductivity of hot gases, and luminescence. Becquerel's early education took place at the Lycee Louis-le-Grand from which he graduated in 1872. He then enrolled at the Ecole Polytechnique, and two years later he moved on to the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees (Bridges and Highways School). In 1875 he started teaching at the Polytechnique and later he succeeded his father Alexander -Edmond Becquerel in the Chair of Physics at the Natural History Museum. He was an expert in fluorescence and phosphorescence, continuing the work of his father and his grandfather.1 The period of quiescence in Becquerel's research career came to an end in 1895 with the announcement of Rontgen's discovery of X-rays. The aspect of the discovery that caught Becquerel's
He found evidence to suggest that the rays were refracted and reflected like visible light, although later he attributed these effects to secondary electrons ejected from his glass plate and mirrors. Curie later suggested the name radioactivity for Becquerel 's discovery, a phenomenon that had until that time been referred to as Becquerel's rays. Becquerel characterized his own achievement as the first observation of phosphorescence in a metal. 8 In December 31, 1906, Becquerel was elected vice-president of the Academy of Sciences, serving in that capacity during 1907 and succeeding to the presidency in 1908. 7 In July of 1900, Becquerel was successful in reducing that radiation, in one specimen, to one-sixth of its original value. Endnotes1. New York 1994 Dictionary of Scientific Biography: Volume I, Charles Scribner's Sons. The explanations he attempted were thoroughly confusing, but the facts remained. In confirmation of this result, he found that earlier that spring, Crookes had succeeded by more effective chemical procedures, in separating from uranium the photographically active radiation, which he now attributed to a substance provisionally named uranium X. 3 With this discovery of this new radiation Becquerel's research gained a new focus. Becquerel established the occurrence and the properties of that radiation, so that it could be identified clearly. He noticed that the photographic plate also had a faint image of the pitchblende. He also showed that the power of emitting penetrating rays was a particular property of uranium. Becquerel's own research continued to produce useful results. He showed that, like X rays, crystals could ionize the air they passed through.
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