Antoine César Becquerel
Antoine César Becquerel (
March 7,
1788 –
January 18,
1878) was a
French scientist and a pioneer in the study of electric and luminescent phenomena.
He was born at
Chatillon sur Loing. After passing through the
École polytechnique he became engineer-officer in 1808, and saw active service with the imperial troops in
Spain from 1810 to 1812, and again in France in 1814. He then resigned from the army and devoted the rest of his life to scientific investigation.
In 1820 Following
Haüy he found that pressure can induce electricity in every material, attributing the effect to surface interactions (this is not
piezoelectricity). In
1825 he invented a differential
galvanometer for the accurate measurement of
electrical resistance. In
1829 he invented a constant-current electrochemical cell, the forerunner of the
Daniell cell. In the same year, working with his son
A. E. Becquerel, he discovered the
photoelectric effect on an electrode immersed in a conductive liquid.
His earliest work was mineralogical in character, but he soon turned his attention to the study of
electricity and especially of
electrochemistry. In 1837 he became a Fellow of the
Royal Society, and received its
Copley Medal for his various memoirs on electricity, and particularly for those on the production of metallic sulphurets and sulphur by
electrolysis. He was the first to prepare metallic elements from their
ores by this method. It was hoped that this would lead to increased knowledge of the recomposition of crystallized bodies, and the processes which may have been employed by nature in the production of such bodies in the mineral kingdom.
In biochemistry he worked at the problems of animal heat and at the phenomena accompanying the growth of plants, and he also devoted much time to meteorological questions and observations. He was a prolific writer, his books including
Traité de l'électricité et du magnétisme (1834 -1840),
Traité de physique dans ses rapports avec la chimie (1842),
Elements de électro-chimie (1843),
Traité complet du magnétisme (1845),
Elements de physique terrestre et de meteorologié (1847), and
Des climats et de l'influence qu'exercent les sols boisés et non boisés (1853). He died in
Paris, where from 1837 he had been professor of physics at the
Museum d'Histoire Naturelle.
He was the father of the physicist
A. E. Becquerel and grandfather of the physicist
Henri Becquerel.
*
Eléments de physique terrestre et de météorologie, Paris, Firmin Didot,
1847.
*
Des forces physico-chimiques et de leur intervention dans la production des phénomènes naturels, Paris, Didot,
1875.
*
Royal Society (brief biographical details)*
Catholic Encyclopedia article
