Walton, Ernest

Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton was born on October 6, 1903. He was an Irish physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics who first split the atom.

From 1915 to 1921 Ernest Walton attended Methodist College Belfast.

In 1922 Walton won a scholarship to study physics and mathematics at Trinity College Dublin, where he received his BA in 1926 and his MA in 1927. During the time at Trinity Ernest Walton won seven awards for his achievements in physics and mathematics. After receiving his diploma, Walton was accepted as a postgraduate student at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University working under Ernest Rutherford.

Ernest Walton 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. Later, in 1951, Ernest Walton and John Cockcroft received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their "work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated particles."

Walton received his PhD in 1931 and worked as a researcher at Cambridge until 1934.

Ernest Walton returned to Ireland in 1934 to become a fellow of Trinity College Dublin in the physics department, and in 1946 was appointed Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy. Walton's lecturing was considered outstanding as he had the ability to present complicated matters in simple and easy-to-understand terms. His research interests were pursued with very limited resources, yet he was able to study, in the late 1950s, the phosphorescent effect in glasses, secondary-electron emissions from surfaces under positive-ion bombardment, radiocarbon dating and low-level counting, and the deposition of thin films on glass.

In later years, particularly after his retirement as professor in 1974, Ernest Walton received honorary degrees from numerous universities and institutions from around the world.

Ernest Walton died on June 25, 1995 at the age of 91.

Citing Wikipedia.org