the.com/becquerel
one atom losing its mind per second, and someone made it a unit
means The SI unit of radioactivity, equal to one nuclear decay (one atom disintegrating) per second.
from Named for the French physicist Henri Becquerel, who in 1896 discovered radioactivity when he found that uranium salts fogged a photographic plate left in the dark — no sunlight required. The surname itself is old French, and the unit was officially adopted in 1975, joining the small club of scientists turned into measuring sticks.
- definition
- one radioactive decay per second, that's it
- namesake
- Henri Becquerel found radioactivity by accident in 1896
- tiny scale
- a banana clocks roughly 15 becquerels of potassium
- old rival
- replaced the curie, which equaled 37 billion becquerels
- family business
- three generations of Becquerels chased light and physics
for instance
henri becquerel — french physicist who discovered radioactivity in 1896 while experimenting with uranium salts