we are in ireland we're in dublin we're
in trinity college uh and we're standing
outside as you can see the physical
laboratory the physics department here
in trinity college dublin where ernest
walton
many would say i think with very little
argument the most important or the most
famous the most prestigious irish
physicist has been because he he split
the atom he's the first person to split
the atom he was the first person along
with croccraft to uh verify that is
equal mc squared is right he
paved the way for nuclear energy paved
the way for um or understanding of the
nucleus he did
at the time or
what was just a remarkable uh
achievement which was to to target the
nucleus to target the nucleus with
protons and that nucleus at the time it
was said it was like trying to target a
gnat in a cathedral to try and get down
because the nucleus is 10 sorry 100 000
times smaller than the atom so you're
really trying to fire in that it's not
what they were very keen to say it's
split in the atom is sort of easy what
they were doing was splitting the
nucleus and they were finding that
nucleus which is embedded at the heart
of the atom he um he went to work with
rutherford in the cavernous laboratory
in cambridge and that's where he did his
experiments he built up uh
accelerators uh particle accelerators
the first generation of particle
accelerators came from um
cockroft and and walton that worked very
close together kirchhoff more on the
theoretical side walton was an
incredibly talented experimentalist
extremely good with his hands
working with bits of copper and metal
and glass and apparently key aspects of
the kit were held together with
plasticine so we're going to go inside
into this wonderful historic building
we're going to meet somebody called
professor ignatius mcgovern who was not
only had the um honor of having an
office beside walton was actually had
the dishonor or the opposite of honor of
actually being the external examiner for
my phd thesis
so he knows exactly how little physics i
actually know so let's go in and see
iggy
this this actually is um where walton's
office
was so as you can see
obviously there's a different incumbent
in there now
fortunately we can't get in which is a
bit frustrating but we're going to go
and see now
well this used to be the the the big
teaching lab in in in this building this
building is from 1905 so it was a really
a modern building
of its time
and this is where the practicals
were carried out a very large room but
it has been to some extent carved up a
little bit for offices
and in behind me directly behind me is a
very famous office this is uh professor
walton's office
in his retirement trinity is a strong
tradition of keeping its
scholars
if you like staying on after they've
retired contributing in
big and small ways but being being about
the place well my mind is my office is
in the corner here also part of this
carve-up
but it's a very sort of flimsy carve up
so you can actually conversations uh
carry through these walls we have to be
very careful by what we say equally you
can hear everything that's around noises
for example
at one stage we the
trinity college didn't have very many
phone lines in this building and uh we
shared a phone line professor walter and
i which are and whoever got to the phone
first would be the person who answered
the phone
so i would occasionally hear him saying
he's not here
you would
accidentally be sharing phone calls with
with walton yes yes it's amazing
yes well he was getting me he was he was
getting a better class of phone call
here's a great great story about walton
that our genial host professor ignatius
mcgovern told us uh just just when we
arrived here so walton was uh lecturing
at the board
one day in this theater in this very
very theater and was writing on the
board something and he heard this
click
click and what had happened is that
somebody back in the audience had
dropped a ball bearing and the ball
bearing was rolling down these these
stairs
and so
walton finished whatever he was writing
and then he
walked over here
he picked up the ball bearing wherever
it was
he walked back up these
stairs and he placed it on exactly
the desk
that uh it came from and he said to the
person sitting in the end or whisper to
him don't do that again obviously he'd
counted the hops of the ball bearing
down the steps while he was doing
probably quite complex derivation on the
board at the same time i love that story
but the great thing about walton is all
the all the biographies you read of
walton
a wonderful scientist but really really
humble um really didn't you know
you know strive to take the credit for
things actually had to be forced out
into the limelight
but at the same time generally you find
when people are sort of
perhaps humble like that they tend to be
quite introverted withdrawn but what was
a really phenomenally good lecturer
really really really good and um
generations of students attest to that
and um he was incredibly well loved here
and um the the the humility of the man i
think was um you know people would come
into the the staff room the common room
here walton would be sitting in the
corner and people couldn't believe that
the person they were talking to you know
was
split the atom you know he was the guy
along with carcroft and um
he was he you know he didn't let all
that go to his head well i think the
first you know the first contact with
him and first meeting him was was a
little bit uh you know overwhelming but
he came to coffee every every morning
like everybody else and after a few
weeks then i kind of got used to the
idea that
uh ets as we called him was was just
part of the part of the part of the
crowd or he was also known as the wii
prof
uh
that's just
affection yes he was yes he was he
wasn't at all he wasn't a tall man you
know he had been the prof and then he
had retired and someone else became the
prof and so he became the wee prof
okay so other than
trying not to overhear
his telephone conversations like what i
couldn't help hearing are the little
noises that were coming through the wall
because ets was an experimentalist and
he liked to tinker with bits and pieces
of apparatus in particular old pieces of
apparatus that he used in demonstration
lectures
and these often involved electrostatic
generating machines machines like the
the wimshurst machine something that you
sort of discontinue propelled around and
it picked up electrostatic charge and
created a spark so you could i could
hear this sort of whirring and then this
the spark the crack of the spark well i
suppose what we're doing we're inching
towards the this idea of writing a poem
about uh ets walton and i uh
that's one of the things i do here in in
in physics i write poetry uh uh
sometimes about science sometimes about
other things and so i was asked to to
write a poem
on the occasion of the
plaque that you you may have seen on the
building downstairs commemorating ets
walden
and so thinking about what what should i
write about uh
you might say maybe a a difficult
subject because he was a very quiet
unassuming man
but what i hit upon for my poem were two
a combination of two things one was the
little noises coming through the wall
you know the little smack of the of the
discharge
from the wimshurst machine and an even
bigger noise if you like which of course
was the awarding of the
the
nobel prize
and
in that context the idea of splitting
the atom
and when it was announced that they had
split the atom
there was a cartoon in one of the
british newspapers showing the boys with
a gigantic mallet
splitting
the atom so the noise and the
combination of that cartoon became a
kind of a theme on if you like on
hammers
and the poem is called hammer and spark
well you're in my office which is
next door to ets walton's office this is
the the wall the flimsy flimsy wall
hammer and spark
not the miss proclaiming the glorious
news
nor the cartoon mallet
of the first atom smashers
nor the claw dismantling the timbers for
reuse
nor the gavel expanding the laws of
student physics
nor the sledge on plowshares for the
global village
listen
a gentle tapping
the pain of the silversmith
the scintillations that be token faith