Antoine Henri Becquerel

Facts

Antoine Henri Becquerel

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Antoine Henri Becquerel

Born: 15 December 1852, Paris, France

Died: 25 August 1908, ,

Affiliation at the time of the award: École Polytechnique, Paris, France

Prize motivation: "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity."

Prize share: 1/2

Work

When Henri Becquerel investigated the newly discovered X-rays in 1896, it led to studies of how uranium salts are affected by light. By accident, he discovered that uranium salts spontaneously emit a penetrating radiation that can be registered on a photographic plate. Further studies made it clear that this radiation was something new and not X-ray radiation: he had discovered a new phenomenon, radioactivity.

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