Ernest Walton

Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton was an Irish physicist and Nobel laureate who first split the atom. He is best known for his work with John Cockcroft to construct one of the earliest types of particle accelerator, the Cockcroft–Walton generator. In experiments performed at Cambridge University in the early 1930s using the generator, Walton and Cockcroft became the first team to use a particle beam to transform one element to another. According to their Nobel Prize citation: "Thus, for the first time, a nuclear transmutation was produced by means entirely under human control".

6 October 1903

Born on the same birth day (6 October): Albert J. Beveridge • Alice Timander • Ernest Lapointe • Jake Guentzel • Jordan Hamilton (basketball) • Knut Storberget • Meghnad Saha • Melinda Doolittle • Olivia Thirlby • Ricky Hatton • Shana Alexander

Born in the same month (October 1903): Bei Shizhang • Big Joe Williams • Curly Howard • Cécile de Brunhoff • Ernst Kaltenbrunner • George Beadle • John Chamberlain (journalist) • Josephine Hutchinson • Lina Radke • M. King Hubbert • Mahn Ba Khaing • Nathanael West • Pierre Garbay • Pierre Veyron • Piet van der Horst • Prince Charles, Count of Flanders • Tor Johnson • Vernon Duke • Walter O'Malley