BECQUEREL, Henri (1852-1908). Autograph manuscript signed (‘Henri Becquerel’), draft for a paper entitled ‘Note sur une propriété des rayons a du radium’, [1903].

BECQUEREL, Henri (1852-1908). Autograph manuscript signed (‘Henri Becquerel’), draft for a paper entitled ‘Note sur une propriété des rayons a du radium’, [1903].

In French. Two pages, 350 x 225mm, autograph emendations and cancellations, marginal calculations. Provenance: Stargardt, Apr 1, 2008, lot 365 (apparently part lot).

Becquerel’s draft for his 1903 paper on radium radiation. Entitled ‘Note on a property of radium alpha rays’, Becquerel opens his paper outlining the three types of radium radiation – gamma rays (similar to X-rays), beta rays (similar to cathode rays) and alpha rays, of which [Ernest] Rutherford has made a study – before moving to the central observation of his paper: ‘By recording on a photographic plate a beam of alpha rays deviated by a magnetic field, I showed recently that this beam was homogeneous, that is, it consisted of rays having the same magnetic deviability’. His experimental process and a theoretical explanation follow.

Henri Becquerel’s ‘Note sur une propriété des rayons a du radium’ appeared in Comptes rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l'Académie des sciences in January 1903; later that same year, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics with Pierre Curie and Marie Curie for the discovery of spontaneous radioactivity.