Becquerel, Antoine Henri, << beh KREHL or `behk` uh REHL, ahn TWAHN ahn REE >> (1852-1908), was a French physicist. He shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with Pierre and Marie Curie for his discovery of natural radioactivity (see Radiation). In 1896, Becquerel found that rays coming from a uranium ore affected a photographic plate in the same manner as X rays. These rays did not seem to be related to any external source of energy, such as the sun, and were more powerful than the radiation from pure uranium. Following his suggestion, the Curies and French chemist Gustave Bemont worked on the substance pitchblende and isolated from it the chemical element radium.
Becquerel was born in Paris on Dec. 15, 1852. His father and grandfather also were physicists. Becquerel studied at the Ecole Polytechnique and graduated as an engineer from the Ecole des Ponts-et-Chaussees. In 1892, he became professor of physics at the Museum of Natural History, and in 1895 took the same position at the Ecole Polytechnique. He was elected president of the French Academy of Sciences in 1908. Becquerel died on Aug. 25, 1908. The becquerel, a unit of radioactivity, is named for him.
