Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton was born on 6 October 1903 inDungarvan, Ireland, the son of John Walton (1874–1936), aMethodist minister fromCloughjordan, and Anna Sinton (1874–1906) fromRichhill.[2] In those days, a general clergyman's family moved once every three years, and this practice carried Ernest and his family, while he was a small child, toRathkeale,County Limerick (where his mother died), and toCounty Monaghan.
In 1922, Walton won scholarships toTrinity College Dublin for the study of mathematics and science, and would go on to be elected aFoundation Scholar in 1924. He was awarded bachelor's and master's degrees from Trinity in 1926 and 1927, respectively. During these years at college, he received numerous prizes for excellence in physics and mathematics (seven prizes in all), including the Foundation Scholarship in 1924. After graduating in 1927, he was awarded an1851 Research Fellowship from theRoyal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851[5] and was accepted as a research student atTrinity College, Cambridge, under the supervision ofErnest Rutherford, director of theCavendish Laboratory. At the time there were four Nobel Prize laureates on the staff at the Cavendish lab and a further five were to emerge, including Walton andJohn Cockcroft. Walton received hisPh.D. in 1931, and remained at Cambridge as a researcher until 1934.[6]
During the early 1930s, Walton and Cockcroft collaborated to build an apparatus that split thenuclei oflithiumatoms by bombarding them with a stream ofprotons accelerated inside a high-voltage tube (700 kilovolts).[7][8] The splitting of the lithium nuclei producedhelium nuclei.[9] They went on to useboron andcarbon as targets for their 'disintegration' experiments,[10] and to reportinduced radioactivity.[11] These experiments provided verification of theories aboutatomic structure that had been proposed earlier by Rutherford,George Gamow, and others. The successful apparatus – a type ofparticle accelerator now called theCockcroft–Walton generator – helped to usher in an era of particle-accelerator-based experimentalnuclear physics. It was this research at Cambridge in the early 1930s that won Walton and Cockcroft theNobel Prize in Physics in 1951.[6][12]
Walton returned to Ireland in 1934 to become a Fellow ofTrinity College Dublin in the Physics Department. He was appointedErasmus Smith's Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in 1946, and was promoted to Senior Fellow in 1960.[6] His lecturing was considered outstanding as he had the ability to present complicated matters in simple and easy-to-understand terms. His research interests were pursued with very limited resources, yet he was able to study, in the late 1950s, thephosphorescent effect in glasses, secondary-electron emissions from surfaces under positive-ion bombardment, radiocarbon dating and low-level counting, and the deposition of thin films on glass.[citation needed][13]
Walton was associated with theDublin Institute for Advanced Studies for over 40 years, where he served long periods on the board of the School of Cosmic Physics and on the council of the Institute. Following the 1952 death ofJohn J. Nolan, the inaugural chairman of the School of Cosmic Physics, Walton assumed the role and served in that position until 1960, when he was succeeded by John H. Poole.[14][15]
Although Walton retired fromTrinity College Dublin in 1974, he retained his association with the Physics Department at Trinity up to his final illness. Shortly before his death, he marked his lifelong devotion to Trinity by presenting his Nobel medal and citation to the College.[17]
In 1934, Walton married Winifred Wilson, the daughter of a Methodist minister.[16] They had four children: Alan Walton (a physicist at theUniversity of Cambridge), Marian Woods, Philip Walton (Professor of Applied Physics,NUI Galway), and Jean Clarke.[19]
Raised as aMethodist, Walton has been described as someone who was strongly committed to the Christian faith.[20] He gave lectures about the relationship of science and religion in several countries after he won the Nobel Prize,[21] and he encouraged the progress of science as a way to know more about God.
Walton is quoted as saying:
"One way to learn the mind of the Creator is to study His creation. We must pay God the compliment of studying His work of art and this should apply to all realms of human thought. A refusal to use our intelligence honestly is an act of contempt for Him who gave us that intelligence"
— V. J. McBrierty (2003):Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton, The Irish Scientist, 1903-1995, Trinity College Dublin Press.)[22]
Walton held an interest in topics about the government and the Church,[23] and after his death, the organisationChristians in Science Ireland established theWalton Lectures on Science and Religion (an initiative similar to theBoyle Lectures).David Wilkinson,Denis Alexander, and others have given Walton Lectures in universities across Ireland.[24]
Walton andJohn Cockcroft were recipients of the 1951Nobel Prize in Physics for their "work on the transmutation of theatomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles" (popularly known assplitting the atom). They are credited with being the first to disintegrate the lithium nucleus by bombardment with acceleratedprotons (or hydrogen nuclei) and identifyinghelium nuclei in the products in 1930. More generally, they had built an apparatus which showed thatnuclei of various lightweight elements (such aslithium) could be split by fast-moving protons.
In 1935, Walton was elected a Member of theRoyal Irish Academy (MRIA).[26] In 1938, Walton and Cockcroft received theHughes Medal of theRoyal Society.[27] In much later years – predominantly after his retirement in 1974 – Walton receivedhonorary degrees or conferrals from numerous Irish, British, and North American institutions.[28]
The Walton Causeway Park in Walton's nativeDungarvan was dedicated in his honour with Walton himself attending the ceremony in 1989.[29] After his death theWaterford Institute of Technology named a building the ETS Walton Building[30] and a plaque was placed on the site of his birthplace.[29]
Other honours for Walton include the Walton Building atMethodist College Belfast, the school where he had been a boarder for five years, and a memorial plaque outside the main entrance to Methodist College.Wesley College in Dublin, where he attended and for many years served as chairman of the board of Governors, established the Walton Prize for Physics, and a prize with the same name at Methodist College is awarded to the pupil who obtains the highest marks in A Level Physics. There is also a scholarship inWaterford named after Walton.[31] In 2014,Trinity College Dublin set up the Trinity Walton Club,[32] an extracurricular STEM Education centre for teenagers.
^Gale Research Inc (1998). "Encyclopedia of World Biography: Vitoria-Zworykin":Outside of his scientific work, Ernest Walton was active in committees concerned with the government, the church, research and standards, scientific academies, and the Royal City of Dublin Hospital.
Massey, Harrie (1972). "Nuclear Physics Today and in Rutherford's Day".Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London.27:25–33.doi:10.1098/rsnr.1972.0004.S2CID8449684.
McBrierty, Vincent J. (2003).Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (1903–1995): The Irish Scientist. Trinity College Dublin Press.ISBN1-871408-22-9.OCLC53461335.
