Hammer and Spark - Sixty Symbols

We are in Ireland. We're in Dublin. We're in Trinity College. 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 split the atom. He's the first person to split the atom. He was the first person, along with Crockcroft, to verify that E is equal to mc squared is right. He paved the way for nuclear energy, paved the way for our understanding of the nucleus. He did, at the time, what was just a remarkable achievement, which was 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 100,000 times smaller than the atom. So you're really trying to fire in there. It's not, what they were very keen to say, splitting 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 went to work with Rutherford in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. And that's where he did his experiments. He built up accelerators, particle accelerators. The first generation of particle accelerators came from Crockcroft and Walton. They worked very, very close together. Crockcroft 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 not only had the honour of having an office beside Walton. Was actually had the dishonour, or the opposite of honour. 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 actually is 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 Iggy now. Well this used to be the big teaching lab in this building. This building is from 1905. So it was really a modern building of its time. And this is where the practical work carried out. A very large room. But it has been to some extent carved up a little bit for offices. And behind me, directly behind me is a very famous office. This is Professor Walton's office. In his retirement. Trinity has a strong tradition of keeping its scholars, if you like, staying on after they've retired. Contributing in big and small ways. But being about the place. Well 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 carry through these walls. We have to be very careful about what we say. You can hear everything that's around. Noises, for example. At one stage, Trinity College didn't have many, many phone lines in this building. And we shared a phone line, Professor Walton and I. 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 Walton? Yes. That's amazing. Yes, well he was getting a better class of phone calls. Here's a great, great story about Walton that our genial host, Professor Ignatius McGovern, told us just when we arrived here. So Walton was lecturing at the board one day. In this theatre, in this very, very theatre. And was writing on the board something. And he heard this click, click, 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 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 it came from. And he said to the person sitting in the end, or whispered to him, don't do that again. Obviously he 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 biographies you read of Walton. A wonderful scientist, but really, really humble. Really didn't 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 and withdrawn. But Walton was a really phenomenally good lecturer. Really, really, really good. And generations of students attest to that. And he was incredibly well loved here. And the humility of the man, I think, was, you know, people would come into 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, split the atom. You know, he was the guy along with Cockcroft. And he didn't let all that go to his head. Well, I think the first contact with him and first meeting him was a little bit overwhelming. But he came to coffee every morning like everybody else. And after a few weeks, then I kind of got used to the idea that ETS, as we called him, was just part of the crowd. Or he was also known as the wee prof. That's just affection. Yes, he was. 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, 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. These often involved electrostatic generating machines, machines like the Winshurst machine. Something that you propelled around and it picked up electrostatic charge and created a spark. So I could hear this sort of whirring and then this spark, the crack of the spark. I suppose what we're doing, we're inching towards this idea of writing a poem about ETS Walton. That's one of the things I do here in physics. I write poetry, sometimes about science, sometimes about other things. And so I was asked to write a poem on the occasion of the plaque that you may have seen on the building downstairs commemorating ETS Walton. And so thinking about what should I write about? You might say maybe a difficult subject because he was a very quiet, unassuming man. But what I hit upon from my poem was a combination of two things. One was the little noises coming through the wall, the little smack of the discharge from the Winshurst machine. And an even bigger noise, if you like, which of course was the awarding of 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 hammers. And the poem is called Hammer and Spark. While you're in my office, which is next door to ETS Walton's office, this is the wall, the flimsy, flimsy wall. Hammer and Spark Not the mace proclaiming the glorious news Nor the cartoon mallet of the first atom smashers Nor the claw dismantling the timbers for reuse Nor the gavel expounding the laws of student physics Nor the sledge on plowshares for the global village Listen, a gentle tapping, the peen of the silversmith The scintillations that betoken faith