The Nobel Prize in Physics 1903
Awarded on: 1903-11-12
"in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity"
Affiliations:
- École Polytechnique – Paris, France
Antoine Henri Becquerel
Born: 1852-12-15 in Paris, France
Gender: male
Field: French physicist (1852–1908)
Biography
Antoine Henri Becquerel was a French experimental physicist who shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with Marie and Pierre Curie for his discovery of radioactivity. He also identified that beta particles are high-speed electrons, made observations that laid the groundwork for Ernest Rutherford's theory of radioactive transmutation, and noted the physiological effects of radioactivity which sparked medical applications as radiotherapy.