the early 1930's, many people believed that the world
would come to an end if the atom was ever split. They
would have been very surprised to learn that the nucleus
of an atom had already been 'split' by Rutherford in
Manchester more than ten years earlier! When he returned
to the Cavendish, Rutherford wanted more control over
the particles used to penetrate nuclei. He directed
Cockcroft and Walton to build a high voltage machine
to accelerate the particles to high speeds and hence
high energies, and in 1932 protons were first used to
produce controlled nuclear disintegrations.
this section to find out more about the Cavendish's
high voltage experiments.