Atom splitIn 1932, the atom was split by a proton beam on a lithium target. Two physicists, Englishman Sir John Douglas Cockcroft and Irishman Errnest Walton had developed the first nuclear particle accelerator (the Cockcroft-Walton generator for which they shared 1951 Nobel Prize for Physics. The accelerator was built in a disused room in the Cavendish Laboratory. With this equipment, Walton succeeded in being the first to split the atom (its nucleus). When a proton from the beam supplied by the accelerator struck a lithium nucleus, their unstable combination disintegrated into two alpha particles (helim nuclei). Walton observed the scintillations characteristic of alpha particles on a zinc sulphide screen.« |
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