Ernest Walton

Ernest Walton
Walton in 1951
Born(1903-10-06)6 October 1903
Abbeyside, County Waterford, Ireland
Died25 June 1995(1995-06-25) (aged 91)
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Alma mater
Known forThe first disintegration of an atomic nucleus by artificially accelerated protons ("splitting the atom")
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Institutions
Doctoral advisorLord Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (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]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference irishtimes was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1951 - Ceremony Speech". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved 1 February 2022.

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