MEN of SCIENCE VI

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Albert Einstein

Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 to middle-class Jewish parents in Ulm, Germany. He was regarded by many as the greatest theoretical physicist of all time. Best known as the creator of relativity, Einstein would still rank among the greatest for his part in emergence of quantum mechanics, for his contributions to statistical physics, and for his role as a philosopher of science and a humanitarian. Indeed, his Nobel Prize (1921) was awarded not for relativity; was here to stay, chose to honor him instead for his theory of the photoelectric effect. Einstein died on April 18, 1955.

Antoine Henri Becquerel

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Antoine was a French physicist and was born in Paris on December 15, 1852. He was educated at the Ecole Polytechnique, and in 1875 entered the government bureau of bridges and roads, becoming chief engineer in 1894. In 1895 Becquerel was appointed a professor in the Ecole Polytechnnic. His fame rests on his discovery of radioactivity in early 1896. Investigating whether there was any connection between the phosphorescence of certain minerals after illumination and their ability to darken photographic plate through a light-absorbing substance, such as a thin sheet of paper or metal, Becquerel accidentally discovered that certain phosphorescent uranium salts could so affect a photographic plate. Further investigation revealed that this property of emitting rays detectable by a photographic plate did no depend on exposure of the minerals to light but was an inherent characteristic of the element uranium. This was the first scientific clue which led to knowledge of nuclear physics, and half a century later, to the atomic bomb. For these researches, Becquerel shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in physics with Pierre and Marie Curie. He died at Croisic, Brittany, August 25, 1908.