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more general categories information about this item 10. Noble Prize 10. Noble Prize Physics (209) 11. Award Year 11. Award Year 1950s (72) 1951 (7) 12. Winner Type 12. Winner Type Person (904) 13. Gender 13. Gender Male (853) 14. Birth Year 14. Birth Year 1890s (65) 1897 (11) 15. Place of Birth 15. Place of Birth Europe (459) Europe, western (207) United Kingdom (101) Todmorden (1) 16. Death Year 16. Death Year 1960s (49) 1967 (7) 17. Place of Death 17. Place of Death Europe (331) Europe, western (182) United Kingdom (86) Cambridge (26) 19. Given Name 19. Given Name E-K (339) J (95) 20. Family Name 20. Family Name A-D (195) C (49) 21. Shared Given Name 21. Shared Given Name E-K (229) J (80) John (32) 23. Religion 23. Religion Religious group (353) Apostasy in Catholicism (17) 24. Age at Award Time 24. Age at Award Time 50 - 59 (231) 55 (29) 32. Occupations 32. Occupations Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations (601) Physical Scientists (333) Astronomers and Physicists (222) Physicists (206) 34. Citizens 34. Citizens Europe (450) Europe, western (223) United Kingdom (110) 42. Affilliation with College or University 42. Affilliation with College or University Europe (535) Europe, western (390) United Kingdom (235) Cambridge (118) University of Cambridge (118) Alumni (69) Long-term academic staff (44) Manchester (25) University of Manchester (25) Alumni (9) 44. Memberships 44. Memberships A-D (656) A (635) American Academy of Arts and Sciences (531) R-T (460) R (448) Royal Society (294) Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (111) 45. Other Awards 45. Other Awards A-B (362) A (285) Atoms for Peace Award (7) C-D (404) C (272) Commander of the Order of the British Empire (13) E-F (439) F (394) Faraday Medal (15) Fellow of the Royal Society (101) G-H (389) H (196) Hughes Medal (29) K-L (297) K (173) Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (4) Knight of the Legion of Honour (20) M-N (333) N (205) Niels Bohr International Gold Medal (8) Q-Z (398) R (196) Royal Medal (50) W (157) Wilhelm Exner Medal (19) complete name: Sir John Douglas Cockcroft nobel prize: physics award year: 1951 together with: Ernest Walton prize share: Prize share: 1/2 rational: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1951 was awarded jointly to Sir John Douglas Cockcroft and Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton "for their pioneer work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles." biography: Biography laureate facts: Facts laureate lecture: Lecture given name: John family name: Cockcroft occupation: physicist occupation: university teacher occupation: nuclear scientist field of work: Fuck You work location: Atomic Energy Research Establishment, United Kingdom description: Sir John Douglas Cockcroft was a British physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for splitting the atomic nucleus with Ernest Walton, and was instrumental in the development of nuclear power. After service on the Western Front with the Royal Field Artillery during the Great War, Cockcroft studied electrical engineering at Manchester Municipal College of Technology. He then won a scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge, where sat the tripos exam in June 1924, becoming a wrangler. Ernest Rutherford accepted Cockcroft as a research student at the Cavendish Laboratory, and Cockcroft completed his doctorate under Rutherford's supervision in 1928. With Ernest Walton and Mark Oliphant he built what became known as a Cockcroft-Walton accelerator. Cockcroft and Walton used this to perform the first artificial disintegration of an atomic nucleus, a feat popularly known as splitting the atom. During the Second World War Cockcroft became Assistant Director of Scientific Research in the Ministry of Supply, working on radar. He was also a member of the committee formed to handle issues arising from the Frisch-Peierls memorandum, which calculated that an atomic bomb could be technically feasible, and of the MAUD Committee which succeeded it. In 1940, as part of the Tizard Mission, he shared British technology with his counterparts in the United States. Later in the war, the fruits of the Tizard Mission came back to Britain in the form of the SCR-584 radar set and the proximity fuze, which were used to defeat the V-1 flying bomb. In May 1944, he became director of the Montreal Laboratory, and oversaw the development of the ZEEP and NRX reactors, and the creation of the Chalk River Laboratories. After the war Cockcroft became the director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at Harwell, where the low-powered, graphite-moderated GLEEP became the first nuclear reactor to operate in western Europe when it was started on 15 August 1947. This was followed by BEPO in 1948. Harwell was involved in the design of reactors at Windscale, and the chemical separation plant there. AERE under his direction took part in frontier fusion research, including the ZETA program. His insistence that the chimney stacks of the Windscale reactors be fitted with filters was mocked as Cockcroft's Folly until the core of one of the reactors ignited and released radionuclides during the Windscale fire of 1957. From 1959 to 1967, he was the first Master of Churchill College, Cambridge. He was also chancellor of the Australian National University in Canberra from 1961 to 1965. image copyright: Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive. image citation: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1951. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2018. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1951/summary/> date birth: 1897 date death: 1967 usual name: John Cockcroft
