École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées

Antoine Henri Becquerel was a French physicist, Nobel laureate, and the discoverer of radioactivity along with Marie Skłodowska-Curie and... Pierre Curie, for which all three won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics. Becquerel was born in Paris into a family which produced four generations of scientists, including Becquerel's own son Jean. He studied engineering at the École Polytechnique and the École des Ponts et Chaussées. In 1890 he married Louise Désirée Lorieux. In 1892, he became the third in his family to occupy the physics chair at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. In 1894, he became chief engineer in the Department of Bridges and Highways. Becquerel's discovery of radioactivity is a famous example of serendipity, of how chance favors the prepared mind. Becquerel had long been interested in the phosphorescence, the emission of light of one color following a body's exposure to light of another color.
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Eugène Freyssinet was a French structural and civil engineer. He was the major pioneer of prestressed concrete. Freyssinet was born in at... Objat, Corrèze, France. He worked in the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, France where he designed several bridges until the First World War intervened. His tutors included Charles Rabut. He served in the French Army from 1904–1907 and again from 1914-1918 as a road engineer. His most significant early bridge was the three span Pont le Veurdre near Vichy, built in 1911. At the time, the 72.5 metre spans were the longest so far constructed. Freyssinet's proposal was for three reinforced concrete truss spans, and was significantly less expensive than the standard masonry arch design. The design used jacks to raise and connect the arches, effectively introducing an element of prestress. The bridge also enabled Freyssinet to discover the phenomenon of creep in concrete, whereby the concrete deforms with time when placed under stress.
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