Antoine Henri Becquerel -

: On a cloudy day in Paris, he placed uranium crystals on a photographic plate wrapped in black paper and tucked them in a dark drawer.

: In 1899, he demonstrated that some radioactive rays (beta particles) could be deflected by magnetic fields, proving they were charged particles rather than waves. antoine henri becquerel

: Inspired by the discovery of X-rays, Becquerel wanted to see if phosphorescent materials emitted X-rays after being exposed to sunlight. : On a cloudy day in Paris, he

: This proved that radiation was an inherent property of certain atoms, a phenomenon later named "radioactivity" by his doctoral student, Marie Curie . Key Scientific Contributions : This proved that radiation was an inherent

: He was the first to realize that beta particles were identical to the high-speed electrons recently discovered by J.J. Thomson.

Beyond the initial discovery, Becquerel’s research advanced the field in several ways:

Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852–1908) was a Nobel Prize-winning French physicist renowned for his discovery of . His work laid the foundational stone for nuclear physics and changed our understanding of the atomic structure. The Discovery of Radioactivity (1896)