E.T.S. Walton

E.T.S. Walton wears a suit and glasses. He is talking to another man in a suit and tie as they sit at a table with a microphone on it.
E.T.S. Walton is holding a small white cylinder. A man in the background is looking at the cylinder/ A scientific looking machine is behind them both.
E.T.S. Walton is turning the knob of a scientific looking machine while he talks to a man in the foreground.
E.T.S. Walton watches as another man places a small white cylinder into a machine.
E.T.S. Walton smiles as the man in the foreground examines a small white cylinder.

Visiting Professor of Physics
B.S., Trinity College Dublin 1926
M.S., Trinity College Dublin 1927
Ph.D., Cambridge University 1931

Dr. Walton was an Irish physicist and 1951 Nobel Laureate, known for the first disintegration of an atomic nucleus by artificially accelerated protons (also known as “splitting the atom”). With British Physicist, John Cockcroft, Walton designed and built a machine called the Cockcroft-Walton Generator that could accelerate the proton to energies of 750,000 electron colts (eVs). For this work, the pair won the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics; the generator, is still in wide use today.

In 1960, Dr. Walton joined the Albion College Physics Department as a Visiting Professor, sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSP), as part of Albion’s College Science Improvement Program (COSIP). He gave a series of lectures at Albion and on other campuses and also directed a research project with Physics major, David Gidley, who graduated in 1972. During his time at Albion, Dr. Walton established and funded the Walton Prize, which is given by the Physics Department to the outstanding senior Physics student. The award is announced at the annual Honors Convocation.