Becquerel, Antoine Cesar, << beh KREHL or `behk` uh REHL, on TWAHN say ZAHR >> (1788-1878), was a French physicist who performed pioneering experiments in electricity and electrochemistry. His many inventions include the first constant-current electric pile, the electromagnetic balance, and the thermoelectric needle, which measures internal body temperature. He discovered that the energy developed by contracting muscle tissue is transformed into heat.
Becquerel was born in Loiret on March 7, 1788, and studied science at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. After 1837, he was a professor of physics at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Becquerel died on Jan. 18, 1878. His sons, Louis Alfred Becquerel and Alexandre Edmond Becquerel, were also distinguished scientists. Alexandre’s son, Antoine Henri Becquerel, shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on radioactivity.
