Honours
Walton and John Cockcroft were recipients of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics for their "work on the transmutation of the atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles" (popularly known as splitting the atom). They are credited with being the first to disintegrate the lithium nucleus by bombardment with accelerated protons (or hydrogen nuclei) and identifying helium nuclei in the products. More generally, they had built an apparatus which showed that nuclei of various lightweight elements (such as lithium) could be split by fast-moving protons.
Walton and Cockcroft received the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1938. In much later years - and predominantly after his retirement in 1974 - Walton received honorary degrees or conferrals from numerous Irish, British, and North American institutions.
The "Walton Causeway Park" in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford was dedicated in his honour with Walton himself attending the ceremony in 1989. After his death the Waterford Institute of Technology named a large building the ETS Walton Building and a plaque was placed on the site of his Co. Waterford birthplace.
Other honours for Walton include the Walton Building at Methodist College, Belfast, the school where he had been a boarder for five years, and a memorial plaque outside the main entrance to Methodist College. Also, there is the Walton Prize for Physics at Wesley College, where he attended and for many years served as Chairman of the Board of Governors, and a prize with the same name at Methodist College, which is awarded to the pupil who obtains the highest marks in A Level Physics.
Read more about this topic: Ernest Walton
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—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)