Becquerel, Antoine C�sar 1788-1878
French physicist

He was born in Ch�tillon-Coligny on the River Loing and chose a military career, joining the Corps of Engineers after graduating from the �cole Polytechnique. He left military service after the fall of Napoleon I (1815), and devoted himself to science. Becquerel investigated the electrical properties of minerals, and was the first to use electrolysis to isolate metals from their ores. In 1837 he was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society, and the following year became professor at the Natural History Museum of Paris (1838). He wrote a great number of scientific papers, many with his son, but also with Andr� Amp�re and Jean-Baptiste Biot, and corresponded with Michael Faraday on the topic of diamagnetism. He invented several laboratory instruments, such as an electromagnetic balance and a differential galvanometer.