Ernest Walton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (October 6, 1903 – June 25, 1995) was an Irish physicist and the winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize for Physics (along with Sir John Douglas Cockcroft). Walton is the only Irishman to have win a Nobel Prize for Physics.
Walton was born at Epworth Cottage, in Strandside South, Abbeyside, Dungarvan, County Waterford to a Methodist minister father, Rev. John Walton (1874 - 1936) and Anna Sinton (1874 - 1906).
Contents |
[edit] Education
A general clergyman's family moved once every three years in those days and Ernest lived in Rathkeale and Castleblayney for periods as a small child. He attended day schools in Banbridge, County Down and Cookstown, County Tyrone before becoming a boarder at Methodist College Belfast in 1915, where he excelled in Science and Mathematics.
Walton won a Trinity College sizarship and a County Armagh scholarship and proceeded to Trinity College to study both mathematics and science. A student contemporary of his was Albert J. McConnell who became Provost in 1952. Walton graduated in 1926, having won 7 accolades for his academic achievements from 1924. He then pursued an M.Sci by research and earned this in 1927.
- Michael Roberts Prize (1924)
- Townsend Memorial Prize (1924)
- Large Gold Medal in Experimental Science (1926)
- Mathematics (Gold Medal) (1926)
- Brooke Prize (1926)
- FitzGerald Medal (1956)
- McCullagh Prize (1937)
Walton was then accepted as a research student at Trinity College, Cambridge under the supervision of Sir Ernest Rutherford, Director of Cavendish Laboratory. There were four Nobel Prize winners on the staff there and a further five to emerge, including Walton and John Cockcroft. He earned his Ph.D. in 1931. A partnership between Walton and Cockroft developed that resulted in a new theory of Wave equation, leading to a new era of accelerator-based experimental nuclear physics, details of which were announced in Nature on February 13, 1932. Walton and Cockcroft had split the nucleus of the atom by artificial means. This was also the first nuclear transmutation of an chemical element by artifical means.
[edit] Career at Trinity College
Walton became a Fellow of Trinity College, on his return to Ireland in 1934, and was appointed the eighteenth Erasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in 1946. Walton's lecturing was considered outstanding. He had the ability to present complicated matters in simple and easy-to-understand terms. His research interests were conducted with very limited resources until the 1970s. He identified, in the late 1950's physics research priorities, the phosphorescent effect in glasses, secondary electron emmission from surfaces under positive ion bombardment, radiocarbon dating and low level counting and disposition of thin films on glass.
In 1960, he was elected a Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin.
[edit] Family
Ernest Walton married Freda Wilson on August 23, 1934. They had five children, Dr. Alan Walton (college lecturer in physics, Magdalene College, Cambridge) , Mrs Marian Woods, Professor Philip Walton (Professor of Applied Physics, National University of Ireland, Galway), Mrs Jean Clarke and Winifred Walton (died 1936).
[edit] Nobel Prize in Physics
Walton and John Cockcroft were announced on November 16, 1951 as recipients of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics for their 'work on the transmutation of the atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles' (popularly known as splitting the atom) carried out in the Cavendish Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The award was the first and, to date, only Nobel Prize for science awarded to an Irish person (there have been four Nobel Prizes in Literature and five Nobel Peace Prizes awarded to Irish people).
[edit] Other awards
- Hughes Medal by the Royal Society of London (1938)
- Membership of Royal Irish Academy (1935)
- Queen's University of Belfast, honorary degree (1959)
- University of Ulster, honorary degree (1988)
- Gustavus Adolphus College, Minnesota, honorary degree (1975)
- Dublin City University, honorary degree (1991)
- Dickenson College, Glover Gold Medal (1964)
- Commonwealth of Kentucky, commissioned as Kentucky Colonel (1975)
- Royal Dublin Society, honorary member for life (1981)
- Institution of Engineers of Ireland, honorary Fellowship (1985)
- Institute of Physics, honorary Fellowship (1987)
The Walton Prize in Physics is awarded to the most meritiorious performance in physics by a junior freshman.
[edit] Later years
Professor Walton retired in 1974 at the age of 71 but maintained a relationship with Trinity College for many years. He was widely respected and much admired but regarded as a modest, unassuming man.
On the 30th of November, 1989, the Causeway Park in Abbeyside, Dungarvan, Co. Waterford was dedicated "Walton Causeway Park" in his honour. He was accorded a Civic Reception by Dungarvan Urban District Council, under the chairmanship of Cllr Paddy Power, and afterwards, Professor Walton attended the naming ceremony at the entrance to the park, where a plaque was unveiled. Walton Causeway Park is located on the site of the old railway station in Dungarvan near Ernest Walton's early childhood home.
In 2002, the Waterford Institute of Technology dedicated their new Information & Communications Technology building as the ETS Walton Building. Other honours for Walton include the Walton Building at Methodist College, Belfast.
In April 2004, to commemorate the centenery of his birth, a plaque was unveiled on the site of Epworth Cottage, the birthplace of Ernest Walton, in Strandside South, Abbeyside, Dungarvan. The plaque was commissioned by the National Committee for Science and Engineering Commemorative Plaques, and was unveiled jointly by his son, Professor Philip Walton, Physics Dept., National University of Ireland, Galway, and the Mayor of Dungarvan, Cllr Paddy Power. A civic reception was accorded to members of his family, including Professor Philip Walton, daughter Mrs Marion Woods, former vice principal and head of science, Methodist College Belfast, her daughter, Sandra Woods (also a physicist), and the Plaques Committee, led by chairman Dr. Ron Cox and secretary Dr. Norman McMillan. A commemorative lecture was given that evening by Dr. Eric Finch, Dept of Physics, Trinity College, Dublin, the last person to be appointed by E.T.S. Walton before he retired.
[edit] Further reading
- Cathcart, Brian, The Fly in the Cathedral, Penguin, 2005. ISBN 0-14-027906-7
- McBrierty, Vincent J., Walton, The Irish Scientist, Trinity College Dublin Press, 2003. ISBN 1-871408-22-9
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Ernest T. S. Walton – Biography.
- Annotated bibliography for Ernest Walton from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
