Plaque commemorating E.T.S. Walton
The President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, unveiled an Institute of Physics Blue Plaque commemorating Ernest Walton at the Physics Department, Trinity College Dublin on September 9. The plaque was sponsored by the IOP and was unveiled in the presence of the Provost of Trinity,Tom Mitchell, Brian Manley, President of the IOP and Alun Jones, Chief Executive. Ernest Walton was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1951, jointly with John Cockcroft, for their work in 1932 on splitting the atomic nucleus. The work, at Rutherford's Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, constituted the first nuclear accelerator experiment, using protons accelerated to 700 keV.
Ernest Walton returned to work in the Physics Department in Trinity College Dublin in 1934, and was Erasmus Smith's professor from 1946 until his retirement in 1974. President Robinson explained that she had first met Ernest Walton when she was a law student at Trinity, and that he was one of her sponsors when she stood for election to the Irish Senate. The President said that she was particularly pleased to be able to meet Ernest Walton's four children, three of whom trained as physicists, at the unveiling ceremony. Professor Iggy McGovern, of the Physics department, read a poem which he had composed in Ernest Walton's memory, and presented a copy of it to the president. President Robinson's term of office ended on September 12, and it is a mark of Ernest Walton's standing in Ireland that the President made time during her last few hectic days in office to perform the ceremony.
Last updated: Oct 06 2006. | back to top