Ernest Walton

Ernest Walton
Ernest Walton
	Walton in 1951
Born	6 October 1903; Abbeyside, County Waterford, Ireland
Died	25 June 1995 (aged 91); Belfast, Northern Ireland
Alma mater	Trinity College Dublin; Trinity College, Cambridge;
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	Trinity College Dublin; University of Cambridge; Methodist College Belfast; Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies;
Doctoral advisor	Lord Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (6 October 1903 – 25 June 1995) was an Irish physicist and Nobel laureate who first split the atom. 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".

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