| Philip Morrison |
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In the words of physicist Philip Morrison, "twentieth-century physics began about five years ahead of the century itself." The discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen and Henri Becquerel's investigations of phosphorescent salts that fogged photographic plates whether or not they had been exposed to light ushered in the era of modern physics. Becquerel did not immediately realize that a previously unknown type of energy caused his so-called uranium rays - what Marie and Pierre Curie would call "radioactivity." Roentgen and the Curies appear on stamps from many countries around the world, whereas Bequerel did not capture the popular imagination, nor the attention of other than French postal authorities who decide whom to commemorate. |