Becquerel was born in 1852 in the famous town Versailles, close to Paris, the capital of France. He had his early education in Versailles and then entered the University of Paris for tertiary education.
After passing out as a Bachelor of Science he joined the Highways Department in Paris. As a young engineer he rendered a selfless service to improve the conditions of roads and streets in the famous city and its suburbs.
While serving in that position he conducted a lot of experiments and innovated few new methods in building roads that would make them last longer, and travelling on them more comfortable.
At the time Becquerel had many achievements for his credit, and he was admitted to the reputed French National Academy. Becquerel who met a talented couple of scientists Marie and Pierre Curie had them join the research programme he was conducting on Polonium.
In 1896 he discovered radioactivity in Uranium salts. Marie and Pierre Curie and Becquerel shared the Noble Prize in Physics in 1903 for their respective contributions to the field.
Becquerel’s major achievements were the explanations he made on auto-irradiation and development of a standard unit for measuring radioactivity. This unit was named after him and is still being used.
Becquerel served as professor at the Paris Museum of Natural History and Ecole Polytechnique, two great academic institutions in Europe.
This great scientist passed away in 1908 in his Paris residence.
