This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: While scientists are known for their dedication to their research, crawling on the floor to avoid electrocution for the sake of a measurement seems a little excessive. But this is what British physicist John Cockcroft and Irish physicist Ernest T.S.
Walton had to do in the early 1930s while studying the structure of atomic nuclei. Luckily, their efforts led to their receiving the Nobel Prize in 1951. In the early 1930s, scientists were just beginning to discover the extraordinary world hidden inside the atom, which is made up of a dense center, called the nucleus, with electrons orbiting around it.
Nobel laureate Ernest Rutherford had already shown that radioactive materials sometimes emitted particles, naturally changing the makeup of their atomic nuclei. When energetic particles collided with atomic nuclei, they could trigger a reaction that rearranged the protons and neutrons in the nucleus—sometimes transforming one element into another. But scientists could only study this phenomenon using particles from radioactive decays, which provided limited energy and intensity.
Cockcroft and Walton wondered whether they could instead create these collisions using particles accelerated by a machine. Working under Rutherford at the famous Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, Cockcroft and Walton developed the first machine capable of deliberately accelerating hydrogen atoms, made up of a single proton, to high energies. The high-voltage system they developed could produce up to 800,000 volts, which is the same as over 500,000 AA batteries.
This first particle accelerator design was a far cry from the massive machines you can find today. While Cockcroft and Walton's apparatus could fit in a room, modern accelerators at facilities like CERN in Switzerland can reach up to 17 miles (27 kilometers) in length. Still, the 1932 design laid down essential scientific bedrock.
Over the past 75 years, accelerator technology has led to many cutting-edge physics breakthroughs. A particle accelerator uses electric fields to increase the energy of charged particles, such as positively charged protons or negatively charged electrons. It then directs the stream of particles onto a target.
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