ABSTRACT
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton, from Dungarvan in County Waterford, shared the 1951 Nobel prize for physics with Sir John Cockcroft for their breakthrough experiment in the artificial disintegration and transmutation of atomic nuclei. Working at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge in 1932, they used high voltages to accelerate streams of protons, and with these they bombarded targets of the lighter elements-the first time that atomic nuclei were penetrated by means entirely under the experimenter’s control. The effect of the bombardment was to change one element into another: lithium atoms absorbed protons and then split into pairs of helium atoms. They had thus realized the alchemists’ dream.
