Jean Antoine Edmond Marie Becquerel (5 February 1878 – 4 July 1953) was a French

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

, the son of Antoine-Henri Becquerel. He worked on a range of experimental physics topics including magnetic effects on the optical properties of materials, and the effects of low-temperature on magnetic susceptibility. He was among the early teachers of relativity and quantum physics in France. Becquerel was born at his home in the Jardin des Plantes where his father Henri (1852–1908), grandfather Edmond (1820–1891) and great-grandfather

Antoine César Becquerel Antoine César Becquerel (7 March 178818 January 1878) was a French scientist and a pioneer in the study of electric and luminescent phenomena. Life He was born at Châtillon-sur-Loing (today Châtillon-Coligny). After passing through the École ...

(1788–1878) had lived. His mother Lucie was the daughter of J.C. Jamin, professor of physics at the Sorbonne. His childhood toys included magnets and electroscopes. He was educated at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand before going to the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

in 1897 and completed his studies at the École des Pouts et Chaussées. He then became an assistant in physics at the Museum of Natural History. He worked on the optical and magnetic properties of

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macro ...

s, and continued experiments to study changes in rotational polarisation induced by a magnetic field that his father had discovered. He also published a textbook on relativity In 1903 some of his research came into question when he collaborated with surgeon André Broca to examine the radiation (N-Rays) supposedly emanating from living bodies (as claimed originally by René Blondlot) which was claimed to reduce upon the administration of anaesthetics. In 1909, he became the fourth in his family to occupy the physics chair at the

Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...

, following in the footsteps of his father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather. He taught physics along with

Paul Langevin Paul Langevin (; ; 23 January 1872 – 19 December 1946) was a French physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation. He was one of the founders of the ''Comité de vigilance des intellectuels antifascistes'', an an ...

and was among the few who taught quantum theory and relativity in the 1920s. He was interested in electron theory and examined magnetic susceptibility in relation to temperature and began to experiment with rare-earth crystals at low temperatures. He examined these using spectroscopy and found that some absorption bands disappeared and this led to a collaboration with

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (21 September 1853 – 21 February 1926) was a Dutch physicist and Nobel laureate. He exploited the Hampson–Linde cycle to investigate how materials behave when cooled to nearly absolute zero and later to liquefy heliu ...

at Leiden. Here he examined materials at low-temperatures and described the spectra and looked at magnetic properties. Becquerel received the Hughes Prize of 1913 and the La Case Prize of 1936.

Selected works

* ''Principe de Relativité et la Théorie de la Gravitation'', Lectures given in 1921 and 1922 at the École Polytechnique and the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, Gauthier-Villars & Co. 1922

Selected works

References

Further reading