Beckerel Biography Presentation

Antoine Henri Beckerel - the Nobel Prize in Physics in the city of the first two were the spouses of Pierre and Maria Curie. And the third is the hero of our new history - Antoine Henri Beckerel. His contribution was briefly and clearly expressed: "In the recognition of his outstanding merits, expressed in the discovery of spontaneous radioactivity." Becquerel was also engaged in the research of electricity, magnetism, optics, photochemistry, meteorology, phosphorescence.

Antoine Henri Becquerel was born on December 15. His family gave humanity four generations of scientists. So, the father of Antoine Henri, Alexander Edmond, and his grandfather, Antoine Cesar, were famous scientists, professors of physics at the Museum of Natural History in Paris and members of the French Academy of Sciences. It is quite logical that the older generations of Beckerel had a strong influence on Antoine Henry.

Since there was a real physical laboratory in their house, Becquerel Jr. often appeared there, with admiration and interests, watching his father's experiments. Further, Antoine Henri moves along the abode of the senior path, having first received secondary education in the Lyuma of Louis the Great, and then, the age of 20 years, becoming a student of the Polytechnic School in Paris.

Like other scientists, he tries to choose such an educational route that would correspond to his abilities and aspirations as much as possible.

Therefore, after two years of study at the Polytechnic School, Becquerel is transferred to the Higher School of bridges and roads. At first he, as a student, studies engineering, and subsequently teaches and engages in independent research. Their happiness was not destined to last long: four years later Lucy dies during childbirth, giving Antoine their only son Jean. Looking ahead, let's say that Jean will grow safely and become a physicist, and the widower of Becquerel 12 years after the birth of his son will marry a second time.

With his second wife, Louise Dezir Lorier, he will be together until the end of his life. In the city of Becquerel, he took up his first scientific research, studying the impact of magnetism on linearized light. Two years, after the death of his grandfather, he becomes an assistant in the Museum of Natural History, where he continues to work under the leadership of his father.

Two Beckerels, the eldest and the youngest, conduct joint experiments on measuring the temperature of the magma. The result of this work will be a cycle of articles on the temperature of the Earth written by Beckerel-Sin. Then the summer Antoine Henri defends his doctoral dissertation in the Sorbonne. And a year later, he is chosen by the secretary of the physical department of the French Academy of Sciences.

It would seem that having reached so many heights, one could stop and calmly rest on his laurels, but Becquerel does not stop: in the city of Beckerel he heard about the discovery of Wilhelm with an X -ray, which has great energy and penetrating ability. Today, this radiation is known as an X -ray. Bekkekel was interested in the fact that the X -ray radiation was accompanied by luminescence, the study of which he was engaged before.

Becquerel put forward a hypothesis about the relationship of luminescence and x -rays. He thought about the possibility of obtaining x -rays with the help of luminescence activated by light, and not with cathode rays as it was in the experience of an X -ray. For the experiment, he chose several phosphorescent substances from his laboratory. One of these materials was the salt of Uranus Sulfat Uraunnil-Kaliya, which the scientist laid on a saucer, put on sunlight for “recharging”, and then put on the photographic paste wrapped in light-permeable black paper.

As a result, after the manifestation on photographic plasters, one could see the distinct contours of salt crystals. It seemed that the phosphorescence of uranium salt that arose under the influence of sunlight made X -ray radiation recorded using photographic plate. At the end of February, G. Becquerel decided to check the power of the penetrating ability of X -ray radiation, putting a copper cross under a saucer.

However, cloudy weather prevented a new experiment. With chagrin, the scientist hid photographs and a saucer with uranium salt in the box of his closet for a while, before the onset of sunny days. And on March 1, who knows, just in case ... what he saw caught his breath: a cross was clearly visible on the shown plates. This meant that X -ray radiation of uranium salt does not depend on sunlight and phosphorescence caused by it.

The mysterious nature of this phenomenon will be studied by many physicists, including a student of Beckerel, twice Nobel laureate, Maria Curie, who will call him the term “radioactivity”. 7 years after his historical discovery, Antoine Henri Beckerel will receive the Nobel Prize in physics for him, sharing it with colleagues - Pierre and Maria Curie.

Obtaining a high reward did not bring a scientist of "star disease" and he continued to engage in science and teaching.For numerous scientific discoveries, Becquerel was elected a member of the French Physical Society, the American National Academy of Sciences, the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences, the Italian National Academy of Sciences and the London Royal Society.

Antoine Henri Bekkekel died on August 25 G. in his honor a unit of radioactivity in the SI units system - Beckerel BQ, craters on the moon and on Mars. But the main moral result of the life of the great scientist was the discovery, about which he himself said as follows: "It was my work that led me to God, to faith."