Antoine César Becquerel, discoverer of piezoelectricity

March 7, 1788, Châtillon-Coligny (France) - January 18, 1878, Châtillon-Coligny (France)

He graduated from the École Polytechnique in Paris with a master's degree in engineering in 1808 and served the imperial troops in Spain from 1810 to 1814. He then retired from the army and devoted himself entirely to scientific life.

Among his researches are:

• The study of the phenomenon of luminescence.
• In 1819, he discovered piezoelectricity, a phenomenon that the brothers Pierre and Jules Curie would prove 60 years later in quartz and Rochelle salt.
• He is considered one of the fathers of electrochemistry. He outlined the idea of direct current batteries by being the first to carry out an electrolytic process to separate the metal from the metal in which it is embedded by passing an electric current through conductive substances or electrolytes.
• He studied the conductivity of electrolytes.
• He experimented with the currents caused by heating a single metal and two metals in contact with thermoelectricity.
• In climatology, he contributed to improving the soil in the natural region of Sologne between the Loire and Cher rivers and demonstrated that ocean water and the earth's crust have opposite electrical conditions.
• In physiology, he demonstrated the development of very small electrical currents within everyday actions, such as muscle movement, and invented a thermoelectric needle to measure the internal temperature of bodies.
• In 1829, he discovered the constant current battery.

In 1829, he became a member of the Paris Academy of Sciences and, in 1837, professor of physics at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, where he was succeeded by his son and grandson. In the same year, he received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of England for his contributions to physics and chemistry.

With him began a lineage of scientists. He had three sons, two of whom made great contributions to medicine, and the third, Alexandre Edmon Becquerel, contributed to his father's work by studying the solar spectrum, magnetism, electricity, optics, luminescence, and phosphorescence.

His grandson was the famous Antoine Henri Becquerel, who shared the Nobel Prize with Marie and Pierre Curie for the discovery of natural radioactivity.

As a curiosity, Antoine César Becquerel's name is inscribed on the Eiffel Tower in Paris (France) as one of France's 72 scientists.