Who is becquerel radioactivity

This meant that the uranium emitted radiation without an external source of energy such as the sun. Becquerel had discovered radioactivity, the spontaneous emission of radiation by a material. Later, Becquerel demonstrated that the radiation emitted by uranium shared certain characteristics with X rays but, unlike X rays, could be deflected by a magnetic field and therefore must consist of charged particles.

For his discovery of radioactivity, Becquerel was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics. Henri Becquerel. Scientific Contributions In , Becquerel discovered natural radioactivity. He died in Le Croisic, France on August 25, Load more. Howard V.

Rhude Jr. Phillip Broughton. Health Physicist, University of California, Berkeley. Richard McCardell. In May he announced that the element uranium was indeed what was emitting the radiation.

Becquerel initially believed his rays were similar to x-rays, but his further experiments showed that unlike x-rays, which are neutral, his rays could be deflected by electric or magnetic fields. Many in the scientific community were still absorbed in following up on the recent discovery of x-rays, but in Marie and Pierre Curie in Paris began to study the strange uranium rays. They figured out how to measure the intensity of the radioactivity, and soon found other radioactive elements: polonium, thorium and radium.

Soon Ernest Rutherford separated the new rays into alpha, beta and gamma radiation, and in Rutherford and Frederick Soddy explained radioactivity as a spontaneous transmutation of elements. Becquerel and the Curies shared the Nobel Prize for their work on radioactivity.

Somewhat less well known is the fact that forty years earlier, someone else had made the same accidental discovery. Abel Niepce de Saint Victor, a photographer, was experimenting with various chemicals, including uranium compounds.

Like Becquerel would later do, he exposed them to sunlight and placed them, along with pieces of photographic paper, in a dark drawer. Upon opening the drawer, he found that some of the chemicals, including uranium, exposed the photographic paper.

Niepce thought he had found some new sort of invisible radiation, and reported his findings to the French Academy of Science. No one investigated the effect any further until decades later when Becquerel repeated essentially the same experiment on that gray day in March Follow Us.

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