-
Subject Index A-B
-
Subject Index C-F
-
Subject Index G-K
-
Subject Index L-O
-
Subject Index P-Z
Email: info@searcs-web.com
Searc's Web Guide to 20th Century Ireland - Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (1903-1995)
Ernest Walton was born in Dungarvan, County Waterford and attended schools in Banbridge County Down and at Cookstown, County Tyrone. In 1915 he went as a boarder to Methodist College, Belfast, where he excelled in mathematics and science, and in 1922 he entered Trinity College, Dublin on a scholarship. Walton read honours in both mathematics and experimental science, specializing in physics. He gratuated with first class honours in both subjects in 1926 and received his M.Sc. in 1927.
Walton was awarded a Cambridge University Research Scholarship in 1927 and he went to to work in the Cavendish Laboratory under Lord Rutherford and received his Ph.D. in 1931. Walton was Clerk Maxwell Scholar from 1932 to 1934 when he returned to Trinity College, Dublin, as Fellow: he was appointed Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in 1946, and in 1960 he was elected Senior Fellow of Trinity College.
Prof. Walton's first research involved theoretical and experimental studies in hydrodynamics and, at the Cavendish Laboratory, he worked on indirect methods for producing fast particles, working on the linear accelerator and on what was later to become known as the betatron. He followed this with research on the direct method of producing fast particles by the use of high voltages jointly with J.D. Cokcroft. A suitable apparatus was built which made it possible to show that various light elements could be disintegrated by bombardment with fast protons. They were directly responsible for disintegrating the nucleus of the lithium atom by bombardment with accelerated protons, and for identifying the products as helium nuclei.
Prof. Walton worked at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards and was a member of the Royal City of Dublin Hospital, and the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Dublin Society, Wesley College, Dublin, and many government and church committees.
Walton was awarded the Hughes Medal, jointly with Sir John Cockcroft, by the Royal Society of London in 1938, the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1951 (with Sir John Douglas Cockcroft) and in 1959 he received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Queen's University, Belfast. Ernest T.S. Walton died on June 25th, 1995.©
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (1903-1995)