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• Becquerel
  Becquerel

  noun

  Alexandre Edmond 1820–91, French physicist (son of Antoine César).
• becquerel
  becquerel

  noun

  the derived SI unit of radioactivity equal to one disintegration per second

Becquerel

American  

[bek-uh-rel, bek^uh-rel] / ˌbɛk əˈrɛl, bɛkəˈrɛl /

noun

1. Alexandre Edmond 1820–91, French physicist (son of Antoine César).

2. Antoine César 1788–1878, French physicist.

3. Antoine Henri 1852–1908, French physicist (son of Alexandre Edmond): Nobel Prize 1903.

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Becquerel ¹ British  

/ bɛkrɛl /

noun

1. Antoine Henri (ɑ̃twan ɑ̃ri). 1852–1908, French physicist, who discovered the photographic action of the rays emitted by uranium salts and so instigated the study of radioactivity: Nobel prize for physics 1903

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becquerel ² British  

/ ˌbɛkəˈrɛl /

noun

1.  Bq.  the derived SI unit of radioactivity equal to one disintegration per second

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Becquerel ¹ Scientific  

1. Family of French physicists, including Antoine César (1788–1878), one of the founders of the science of electrochemistry; his son Alexandre Edmond (1820–1891), noted for his research on phosphorescence, magnetism, electricity, and optics; and his grandson Antoine Henri (1852–1908), who discovered spontaneous radioactivity in uranium. Antoine Henri Becquerel's work led to the discovery of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie, with whom he shared the 1903 Nobel Prize for physics.

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becquerel ² Scientific  

/ bĕ-krĕl′,bĕk′ə-rĕl′ /

1. The SI derived unit used to measure the rate of radioactive decay. When the nucleus of an atom emits nucleons (protons and/or neutrons) and is thereby transformed into a different nucleus, decay has occurred. A decay rate of one becquerel for a given quantity means there is one such atomic transformation per second.

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Etymology

Origin of becquerel

C20: named after Antoine Henri _Becquerel

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Becquerel becquerel

It began with the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 by the French physicist Henri Becquerel.

From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2023

The achievements of a list of notables — from Wilhelm Rontgen to Henri Becquerel to Pierre and Marie Curie, for example — are condensed to a few pages.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 9, 2017

She had privileged status at sites from the Paris Observatory to the National Museum of Natural History, and in the laboratories of electrical-theory pioneers André-Marie Ampère and Antoine César Becquerel.

From Nature ● Oct. 21, 2014

Becquerel per hour measures the amount of radiation emitted or the rate of radioactive decay.

From Reuters ● Mar. 5, 2013

Considering the importance of what he had found, Becquerel did a very strange thing: he turned the matter over to a graduate student for investigation.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson

A becquerel is defined as a small unit of radioactivity.

From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2025

A curie is a large unit of activity, while a becquerel is a relatively small unit.

From Textbooks ● Aug. 12, 2015

A becquerel represents one radioactive decay per second and involves the release of atomic energy, which can damage human cells and DNA.

From BusinessWeek ● Oct. 31, 2011

There was 180 becquerel per cubic centimeter of radioactive iodine-131 found in the ocean 330 meters south of the plant, according to the agency.

From BusinessWeek ● Mar. 31, 2011

From a sample from the town of Kunimi about 40 miles northwest of the plant—the most distant among the four locations—1,400 becquerel per kilogram of iodine-131 was detected.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 21, 2011