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A. E. Becquerel

 
A. E. Becquerel

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A. E. Becquerel



 
 
Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel (March 24, 1820 - May 11, 1891) was a French
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 physicist
Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
 who studied the solar spectrum, magnetism
Magnetism

In physics, magnetism is one of the phenomena by which materials exert attractive or repulsive forces on other materials. Some well-known materials that exhibit easily detectable magnetic properties are nickel, iron, cobalt, and their alloys; however, all materials are influenced to greater or lesser degree by the presence of a magnetic fiel...
, electricity
Electricity

Electricity is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena such as lightning and static electricity, but in addition, less familiar concepts such as the electromagnetic field and electromagnetic induction....
, and optics
Optics

Optics is the study of the behavior and properties of light including its optical phenomena with matter and its imaging by optical instruments....
. He is known for his work in luminescence
Luminescence

Luminescence is light that usually occurs at low temperatures, and is thus a form of cold body radiation. It can be caused by chemical reactions, electrical energy, subatomic motions, or Stress on a crystal....
 and phosphorescence
Phosphorescence

File:Phosphorescence.jpgFile:Phosphorescent.jpgPhosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescent. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs....
. He discovered the photovoltaic effect, which is the physics behind the solar cell, in 1839. He was the son of Antoine César Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel

Antoine C?sar Becquerel was a France scientist and a pioneer in the study of electric and luminescent phenomena.He was born at Chatillon sur LoCrea....
 and the father of Henri Becquerel
Henri Becquerel

Antoine Henri Becquerel was a France physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity....
.

Becquerel was born in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
, and was in turn the pupil, assistant and successor of his father at the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle.






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Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel (March 24, 1820 - May 11, 1891) was a French
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 physicist
Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many Physics#Major fields of physics spanning all length scales: from atom particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole ....
 who studied the solar spectrum, magnetism
Magnetism

In physics, magnetism is one of the phenomena by which materials exert attractive or repulsive forces on other materials. Some well-known materials that exhibit easily detectable magnetic properties are nickel, iron, cobalt, and their alloys; however, all materials are influenced to greater or lesser degree by the presence of a magnetic fiel...
, electricity
Electricity

Electricity is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena such as lightning and static electricity, but in addition, less familiar concepts such as the electromagnetic field and electromagnetic induction....
, and optics
Optics

Optics is the study of the behavior and properties of light including its optical phenomena with matter and its imaging by optical instruments....
. He is known for his work in luminescence
Luminescence

Luminescence is light that usually occurs at low temperatures, and is thus a form of cold body radiation. It can be caused by chemical reactions, electrical energy, subatomic motions, or Stress on a crystal....
 and phosphorescence
Phosphorescence

File:Phosphorescence.jpgFile:Phosphorescent.jpgPhosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescent. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs....
. He discovered the photovoltaic effect, which is the physics behind the solar cell, in 1839. He was the son of Antoine César Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel

Antoine C?sar Becquerel was a France scientist and a pioneer in the study of electric and luminescent phenomena.He was born at Chatillon sur LoCrea....
 and the father of Henri Becquerel
Henri Becquerel

Antoine Henri Becquerel was a France physicist, Nobel laureate, and one of the discoverers of radioactivity. He won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering radioactivity....
.

Becquerel was born in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
, and was in turn the pupil, assistant and successor of his father at the Musee d'Histoire Naturelle. He was also appointed professor at the short-lived Agronomic Institute at Versailles
Versailles

Versailles , formerly de facto capital of the kingdom of France, is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and is still an important administrative and judicial centre....
 in 1849, and in 1853 received the chair of physics at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. Becquerel was associated with his father in much of his work, but he himself paid special attention to the study of light, investigating the photochemical effects and spectroscopic characters of solar radiation and the electric light, and the phenomena of phosphorescence, particularly as displayed by the sulfide
Sulfide

The term sulfide refers to several types of chemical compounds containing sulfur in its lowest oxidation number of −2.Formally, "sulfide" is the dianion, S2−, which exists in strongly alkaline aqueous solutions formed from H2S or alkali metal salts such as Li2S, Na2S, and K2...
s and by compounds of uranium
Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-gray metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table that has the chemical symbol U and atomic number 92....
. It was in connection with these latter inquiries that he devised his phosphoroscope
Phosphoroscope

A phosphoroscope is piece of experimental equipment devised in 1857 by physicist A. E. Becquerel to measure how long it takes a Phosphorescence material to stop glowing after it has been excited....
, an apparatus which enabled the interval between exposure to the source of light and observation of the resulting effects to be varied at will and accurately measured.

Becquerel published in 1867-1868 a treatise in two volumes called La Lumière, ses causes et ses effets. He also investigated the diamagnetic and paramagnetic properties of substances; and was keenly interested in the phenomena of electrochemical decomposition, accumulating much evidence in favor of Faraday's law of electrolysis and proposing a modified statement of it which was intended to cover certain apparent exceptions.