Professor Ernest Walton on the need for new ways to generate power as the end of fossil fuels looms.
Professor Ernest Walton and his colleague, British physicist John Cockcroft, were the first people to split the atom, and were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1951 for this pioneering work.
Professor Walton explains that securing funding for scientific research projects is always a challenge because there are no certainties as to an outcome.
All you can say is there's a possibility of this, that or the other thing.
He cites Michael Faraday’s discovery of electromagnetic induction in 1831 as one example. At that time, people could not see the link between electricity and illumination, and so no money was put into researching it. In the same way, areas of scientific research are underfunded today, and we might be missing out.
The issue of where our energy will come from in the future will have to be addressed, as fossil fuels are running out. Nuclear energy brings its own dangers, but solutions exist, and creating energy using hydrogen may be one.
Professor Ernest Walton does not buy into the possibility of science exhausting itself.
You never know whether you’re coming near the end of things or not
This episode of 'Eureka’ was broadcast on 10 December 1975. The reporter is Jim Sherwin.
