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Sir John Douglas Cockcroft ( May 27, 1897 - September 18, 1967) was a British physicist. He received the Nobel Prize for Physics for splitting the atomic nucleus, and was instumental in the development of nuclear power.

Cockcroft was born in Todmorden, England. He was educated at Todmorden Secondary School and studied mathematics at Manchester University. He received a mathematics degree from St. John's College, Cambridge in 1924, and began research work under Ernest Rutherford. In 1929 he was elected a Fellow of St. John's College.

In 1928 he began to work on the acceleration of protonFor alternative meanings see proton (disambiguation). Proton Classification Subatomic particle Fermion Hadron Baryon Nucleon Proton Properties Mass: 938 MeV/ c2 Electric Charge: 1. 6 × 10−19 C Spin: 1/2 In physics, the proton is a subatomic particles with Ernest WaltonErnest Thomas Sinton Walton ( October 6, 1903, Dungarvan, County Waterford June 25, 1995) was an Irish physicist, the winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize for Physics along with Sir John Douglas Cockcroft. Walton became a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge in. In 1932 they bombarded LithiumThis article is about Lithium, the element. For the article on mood-stabilizing drugs, see Lithium salt. Lithium is the chemical element with symbol Li and atomic number 3. In the periodic table, it is located in group 1, among the alkali metals. Lithium with high energy protons, and succeeded in transmuting it into Helium and other elements. This was the first occasion on which an atomic nucleus of one elementGenerally, an element is a basic part that is the foundation of something. For a long time, elements classical element were believed (by the Pythagoreans and alchemists for example) to be the building blocks of all matter in the universe. Similarly, Chine had been successfully changed to a different nucleus by artificial means. This feat was popularly, if not strictly accurately, known as splitting the atom.

At the outbreak of the Second World War he took up the post of Assistant Director of Scientific Research in the Ministry of Supply, working on radarThis article is about the device. For the fictional character in M A S H see Corporal Walter (Radar) O'Reilly. antenna (approximately 40m (130ft) in diameter) rotates on a track to observe activities near the horizon. Radar is an acronym for ra dio d etec. In 1944 he took charge of the Canadian Atomic Energy project and became Director of the Montreal and Chalk River Laboratories. In 1946 he returned to Britain to set up the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, charged with developing Britain's atomic power programme. He became the first director of AERE. Even when leaving the post he continued to be involved with Harwell. He was knighted in 1948, and was created Knight Commander of the Bath in 1953.

In 1951 Cockcroft, along with Walton, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their work in the use of accelerated particles to study the atomic nucleus. In 1959 he was elected Master of Churchill College, Cambridge. He was president of the Institute of Physics, the Physics Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

Cockcroft married Eunice Elizabeth Crabtree in 1925 and had four daughters and a son.

Today, a building named after him exists in the New Museums Site of the University of Cambridge, comprising a lecture theatre and several hardware laboratories.