Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Henri Becquerel (French Physicist)

Henri Becquerel (1852–1908,) fully Antoine Henri Becquerel, was a French engineer and physicist. He accidentally discovered radioactivity in fluorescent salts of uranium in 1896. He later showed that it consists of charged particles deflected by a magnetic field. He shared the 1903 Nobel Physics Prize with Pierre and Marie Curie. The SI unit for radioactivity, the becquerel (bq,) is named after him.

Born in Paris, France, Becquerel belonged to a wealthy family of four generations of physicists Antoine César Becquerel (grandfather,) Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel (father,) and Jean Becquerel (son.) Antoine Henri Becquerel studied at the École Polytechnique and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. He later succeeded his father in the chair of physics at the Natural History Museum.

Becquerel was an expert in fluorescence and phosphorescence, continuing the work of his father and grandfather. During a study of a fluorescent uranium salt, pitchblende, he accidentally left a sample that had not been exposed to light on top of a photographic plate and noticed later that the plate had a faint image of the pitchblende.

Becquerel concluded that these ‘Becquerel rays’ were the property of atoms, thus discovering radioactivity and prompting the beginning of the nuclear age. His work led to the discovery of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie, and he subsequently shared with them the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Henri Becquerel

Decisiveness is often the art of timely cruelty.
Henri Becquerel
Topics: Decisions

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