Antoine Henri Becquerel was a French physicist who did a lot of work with fluorescent minerals. While conducting some experiments with minerals containing uranium, he discovered

Question

, but he did not know it at the time.

Answer 1

Antoine Henri Becquerel was a French physicist who is best known for his discovery of radioactivity. While conducting experiments with uranium salts and their fluorescence, he discovered that they emitted rays that could fog photographic plates, even without any exposure to sunlight. This phenomenon occurred in 1896, and Becquerel initially associated it with the fluorescence of the minerals he was studying. However, he soon realized that the emission was a result of the uranium itself, leading to the groundbreaking discovery of natural radioactivity. This work laid the foundation for further research in nuclear physics and chemistry, and ultimately earned him a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, which he shared with Marie Curie and Pierre Curie.