Ernest Walton (6 October 1903 – 25 June 1995) was an Irish physicist and Nobel laureate for his work with John Cockcroft with "atom-smashing" experiments done at Cambridge University in the early 1930s. Walton is the only Irishman to have won a Nobel Prize in science.
This week's famous Irishman is William Thompson. William Thompson (26 June 1824 – 17 December 1907) was an Irish-born British (Ulster Scot) mathematical physicist and engineer. At Glasgow University he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging discipline of physics in its modern form. He is widely known for developing the Kelvin scale of absolute temperature measurement.
Patrick Sarsfield (1660 – 1693) created the first Earl of Lucan, Irish Jacobite and soldier, belonged to an Anglo-Norman family long settled in Ireland.
