Henri+Becquerel+-+Phenomenon+of+Natural+Radioactivity

= = **Henri Becquerel** http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/becquerel-bio.html  Date of Death- August 25, 1908 ** Year of Discovery- 1896** Being the son and the grandson of two very renowned men of science and scholars, Henri Becquerel was born to do great things. In 1888 he received a degree of “docteur-ès-sciences” from Polytechnic and took over his father’s position as the Chair of Applied Physics at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. Soon after that, he was appointed Professor of Applied Physics in the Department of Natural History at the Paris Museum and became a Professor at the Polytechnic in 1895 (nobelprize.org).
 * Date of Birth- December 15, 1852
 * Place of Origin- Paris, France.

Henri Becquerel worked mostly with polarization of light, absorption of light crystals, and terrestrial magnetism, his atomic achievement came from uranium salts. After the discovery of x-rays, Becquerel became interested and wondered whether the phosphorescence of natural materials and the x-rays were the same type of reaction. However, Becquerel definitely became an example of the phrase “most discoveries are just lucky accidents.” What happened was he left some samples of uranium salts on top of a piece of photographic paper and placed it in his sock drwer for safe keeping while he left for several days. Then when he came back and checked on the salts, they left marks upon the papers. “The phenomenon was found to be common to all the uranium salts studied and was concluded to be a property of the uranium atom” (nobelprize.org).

http://www.vias.org/physics/img/becquerel_plate.jpg