Ernest Walton was born 6 October 1903, in Dungarvan, Ireland to Reverend John Walton and Anna Sinton. His father was a Methodist minister and his occupation made him move from one place to another, which meant that the rest of the family did the same. His mother passed away in 1906
Throughout his childhood he stayed in several places like Rathleake and County Monaghan among others at different stages.
Initially he attended schools in Down and Tyrone before studying at Wesley College Dublin. In 1915, he joined the Methodist College Belfast as a boarder.
In 1922, he won a scholarship to study at Trinity College in Dublin. At Trinity College, he studied the courses in both mathematics honours and honours in experimental science and four years after joining the college he graduated in both. In 1927, he completed his master’s from Trinity College.
In 1927, Ernest Walton was awarded a research fellowship by the Royal Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851 and he went to Cambridge University to work in the Cavendish Laboratory under Lord Rutherford. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research gave him a research award three years after he joined Cambridge and a year later the university awarded him his Ph. D.
He collaborated with fellow research scholar John Cockcroft in the early part of the 1930s to create an apparatus that was meant for bombarding lithium atoms with protons in order to split the nuclei inside them and the series of experiments that the two scientists conducted confirmed the theories on atomic structure that were propounded by scientists like Rutherford. It came to be known as the Cockcroft-Walton generator.
After working at the University of Cambridge for five years, he became the Clerk Maxwell Scholar at the university in 1932 and for the next two years he continued his research in the same capacity. During his time at Cambridge, he worked with some of the finest minds in science at the Cavendish Laboratory, which had four Nobel Laureates as the part of the staff.
He left the University of Cambridge in 1934 in order to join the Trinity College, Dublin, as a Fellow in the physics department. In 1946 he was appointed as the Erasmus Smith Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and occupied this position till his retirement in 1974
Other than being one of the leading researchers of his time, he was also known for being a very good teacher who could break down complex theories so that it could be easily understood by students. His later career research was focussed on radiocarbon dating, hydrodynamics, microwaves, phosphorescent effect in glasses and secondary-electron emissions from surfaces under positive-ion bombardment.
In 1952, he became chairman of the School of Cosmic Physics at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and in 1960 he was elected Senior Fellow of Trinity College.
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. He died on June 25, 1995, at the age of 91.
His collaboration with Cockcroft that helped in producing the Cockcroft-Walton generator that helped in confirming the atomic structure and also showed how bombardment can help split the nucleus of an atom is his most important work. It laid in starting a new era in the field of nuclear physics and he also shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for his research.
In 1938, Walton and Cockcroft shared the Hughes Medal awarded by the Royal Society of London “for their discovery that nuclei could be disintegrated by artificially produced bombarding particles. ”
In 1951, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with John Cockcroft for his work on ‘atom smashing’.
Raised as a Methodist, Walton has been described as someone who was strongly committed to the Christian faith. He even gave lectures about the relationship of science and religion in several countries after he won the Nobel Prize, and he encouraged the progress of science as a way to know more about God. Walton held an interest in topics about the government and the Church and after his death, the organisation Christians in Science Ireland established the Walton Lectures on Science and Religion (an initiative similar to the Boyle Lectures).
Quotations:
"As the size of cyclotrons increases and faster particles are produced, a difficulty arises due to the relativistic increase of mass of the particle. "
"Particles were coming out of the lithium, hitting the screen, and producing scintillations. They looked like stars suddenly appearing and disappearing. "
"The high esteem in which the Nobel Prizes are held is undoubtedly due to the conscientious way in which the Committees have discharged a heavy responsibility. "
"A linear accelerator has the advantage that no magnet is required and that its cost should not rise much more steeply than with the energy of the particles required. "
He was a longtime member of the board of governors of Wesley College, Dublin.
In 1934, Ernest Walton got married to Freda Wilson, who had also been a student of the Methodist College. The couple had four children; two sons and two daughters.
