 Born and raised in Adelaide , South Australia , Oliphant graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1922 . He was awarded an 1851 Exhibition Scholarship in 1927 on the strength of the research he had done on mercury , and went to England , where he studied under Sir Ernest Rutherford at the University of Cambridge 's Cavendish Laboratory . There , he used a particle accelerator to fire heavy hydrogen nuclei ( deuterons ) at various targets . He discovered the nuclei of helium @-@ 3 ( helions ) and tritium ( tritons ) . He also discovered that when they reacted with each other , the particles that were released had far more energy than they started with . Energy had been liberated from inside the nucleus , and he realised that this was a result of nuclear fusion . 
