Cockcroft John Douglas

Cock·croft

 (kŏk′krôft′, -krŏft′), Sir John Douglas 1897-1967.

British physicist who with Ernest Walton succeeded in splitting atomic nuclei by bombarding them with protons. The two men shared a 1951 Nobel Prize for this work.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Cock·croft

(kŏk′krôft′), Sir John Douglas 1897-1967.

British physicist. With the physicist Ernest Walton, he developed the particle accelerator. Their experiments with it led to the first successful splitting of an atom in 1932.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.