Ernest Walton

Ernest Walton
Walton in 1951
Born
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton

(1903-10-06)6 October 1903
Died25 June 1995(1995-06-25) (aged 91)
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Resting placeDean's Grange Cemetery, Deansgrange
Alma materTrinity College Dublin
Trinity College, Cambridge (PhD)
Known forFirst disintegration of an atomic nucleus by artificially accelerated protons ("splitting the atom")
Spouse
Winifred Wilson
(m. 1934)
Children4
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Institutions
Doctoral advisorErnest Rutherford
18th Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy
In office
1946–1974
Preceded byRobert Ditchburn
Succeeded byBrian Henderson
Signature

Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (6 October 1903 – 25 June 1995) was an Irish physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics 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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