Henri Becquerel explained to kids

Henri Becquerel was a French physicist who was born in Paris in 1852. His father, Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel, was a well-known scientist, so it's no surprise that Henri became a scientist too. Henri Becquerel was the person who discovered radioactivity, which is the ability of some materials to emit radiation. This was a very important discovery! Becquerel was studying X-rays when he made his discovery. X-rays are a type of radiation that we can't see with our eyes, but that can pass through our bodies. Becquerel was using X-rays to take pictures of objects, and he noticed that they sometimes made the objects look blurry. He thought that maybe X-rays could be used to take pictures of things that were normally difficult to see, like bones. To test his idea, Becquerel put a piece of uranium on a photographic plate, which is a type of film. Then, he put the film in a drawer and closed the drawer. He expected that the X-rays from the uranium would make the film look blurry. But when he developed the film, he saw that it was completely black! This was because the uranium was giving off radiation, and that radiation had exposed the film. Becquerel's discovery was very important because it led to the development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Radioactive materials are used to generate nuclear power, and uranium is used in nuclear weapons. Becquerel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 for his discovery.