Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (born 6.10.1903) is an Irish physicist and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He was born in Dungarvan. He graduated from the University of Dublin (1928). In 1930-34 he worked at the University of Cambridge, in 1934-74 at the University of Dublin (from 1946 as professor), and at the same time in 1952-60 at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
His research was in the fields of nuclear physics, accelerator technology and cosmic-ray physics. In 1927 he put forward the idea of a resonant linear accelerator with drift tubes; in 1932, together with J. Cockcroft, he constructed the so-called cascade generator for the artificial acceleration of charged particles (the Cockcroft-Walton accelerator), and in 1932 he carried out the first nuclear reaction with artificially accelerated protons — the transmutation of lithium nuclei (Nobel Prize, 1951).
Hughes Medal (D. Hughes, 1938).