Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton 1946-1974
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton was born on 8th October 1906 in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford. His father was a Methodist minister leading the family to move every three years. While studying at Methodist College Belfast he excelled in science and mathematics. He entered Trinity College in 1922 on a sizarship. He graduated BA in 1926 and MA in 1927 and was awarded the MacCullagh prize. Thereafter he was accepted as a research student under the supervision of Ernest Rutherford in Cambridge. Rutherford had worked on transmutation of nitrogen into oxygen when bombarded with alpha particles. Walton suggested artificially producing charged particles to induce the transmutation by accelerating particles using high voltages. Walton’s work on generation of high energy electrons contributed to development of the betatron particle accelerator in 1929. Walton was awarded his PhD in 1931. In 1932 Walton and John Cockcroft, working together in Cambridge, succeeded in producing artificial nuclear disintegration, for the first time. This ‘splitting of the atomic nucleus’ by accelerated protons initiated a new branch of physics in particle acceleration and verified Einstein’s relation E = mc2, relating the energy and mass of a particle and the speed of light. Walton and Cockcroft won the Nobel Prize for physics for this work in 1951.
Walton returned to Trinity in 1934 where he was elected to Fellowship without exam on the merit of his published work and appointed professor in Experimental physics soon after. He became the 18th Erasmus Smith’s professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in 1946. Walton built up the Trinity physics department, hiring several new lecturers. He was known as an excellent teacher, explaining complex topics in understandable terms. New undergraduate syllabuses were created in the late 1950s, including nuclear physics, acceleration of charged particles, and modern solid-state physics. The number of students in the department increased, so that lectures had to be duplicated. In 1950 Walton and Robert Elliot built a Van de Graaff accelerator in Trinity, however its success was limited by available resources and damp weather.
Walton was invited to participate in scientific war work, both in Britain and the United States. The latter invitation was to join the Manhattan project, which led to the development of the atomic bomb. Walton had strong pacifist views and declined both invitations; later he was a member of the Pugwash Group (and president of the Irish section), a society of scientists concerned about the threat of nuclear weapons to humanity. Walton died in Belfast on 25th June 1995 after inspiring generations of physicists at home and abroad. His portrait hangs in the Fitzgerald Building in Trinity College.
Sources
- Eric Finch (2016), Three Centuries of Physics in Trinity College Dublin, Living Edition
- Nobel Prize Outreach AB (2023. Mon. 24), Ernest T.S. Walton, Biographical, NobelPrize.org. (Accessed July 2023). https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1951/walton/biographical/
- Vincent McBrierty (2009), Walton, Ernest Thomas Sinton, Dictionary of Irish Biography, https://www.dib.ie/biography/walton-ernest-thomas-sinton-a8909
- Image of Ernest Walton, By Nobel foundation - http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1951/walton-bio.html , Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6181764