Ernest Walton | |
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![]() Walton in 1951 | |
Born | Abbeyside, County Waterford, Ireland | 6 October 1903
Died | 25 June 1995 Belfast, Northern Ireland | (aged 91)
Alma mater | Trinity College Dublin Trinity College, Cambridge (PhD) |
Known for | The first disintegration of an atomic nucleus by artificially accelerated protons ("splitting the atom") |
Awards | Hughes Medal (1938) Nobel Prize in Physics (1951) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physics |
Institutions |
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Doctoral advisor | Ernest Rutherford |
18th Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy | |
In office 1946–1974 | |
Preceded by | Robert Ditchburn |
Succeeded by | Brian Henderson |
Signature | |
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Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton MRIA (6 October 1903 – 25 June 1995) was an Irish physicist and Nobel laureate who first split the atom.[1] He is best known for his work with John Cockcroft to construct one of the earliest types of particle accelerator, the Cockcroft–Walton generator. In experiments performed at Cambridge University in the early 1930s using the generator, Walton and Cockcroft became the first team to use a particle beam to transform one element to another. According to their Nobel Prize citation: "Thus, for the first time, a nuclear transmutation was produced by means entirely under human control".[2]
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