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Walton, Ernest T. S.

The Oxford Companion to Irish History | 2007 | Copyright

Walton, Ernest T. S. (1903–95), Nobel prize‐winner in physics (1951) with John Cockroft. Born in Co. Waterford and son of a Methodist minister, Walton was educated at Methodist College, Belfast, and Trinity College, Dublin (graduated 1926). From 1927 to 1934 he worked at the Cavendish Laboratory (Cambridge) under Rutherford, earning his doctorate in 1931; while there he collaborated with Cockroft. He returned to Trinity College (1934) and in 1946 was appointed professor of natural and experimental philosophy. By deploying a particle accelerator, Cockroft and Walton raised charged particles to high energies, these streams of particles then being used to produce transmutations in the nuclei of atoms. Their work stimulated nuclear research worldwide.

David Sturdy

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Ernest Thompson Sinton Walton

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. | 2011 | Copyright

Ernest Thompson Sinton Walton 1903–95, Irish physicist, educated at Methodist College (Belfast), Trinity College (Dublin), and Cambridge. He became a fellow of Trinity College in 1934 and professor of natural and experimental philosophy there in 1946. The 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded jointly to Walton and Sir John Cockcroft for their pioneering work in transmuting atomic nuclei by bombarding elements with artificially accelerated atomic particles.

Bibliography: See B. Cathcart, The Fly in the Cathedral (2004).

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Walton, Ernest Thomas Sinton

World Encyclopedia | 2005 | Copyright

Walton, Ernest Thomas Sinton (1903–95) Irish physicist. Walton shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in physics with John Cockcroft for their development (1929) of the first nuclear particle accelerator. In 1931, they produced the first artificial nuclear reaction without radioactive isotopes, using high-energy protons to bombard lithium nuclei.

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