In simple terms, that assertion is correct, but for those with an expertise in the field, the longer answer to who did it ...

Donald Trump angered New Zealanders on his first day in office when he asserted that America split the atom, something that Sir Ernest Rutherford accomplished.

Scientists based in Manchester, not the US, made the "key breakthrough" in splitting the atom, despite Donald Trump's claims in his inaugural speech, says a lecturer at one of the city's universities.

The mayor of Nelson in New Zealand's South Island seized on the subatomic slight, pointing out that work to split the atom was actually pioneered by Kiwi-born physicist Ernest Rutherford.

The term "splitting the atom" isn't the most descriptive way of explaining what Rutherford, along with John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, actually achieved; splitting apart a nucleus by bombarding ...

Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel Prize winner known as the father of nuclear physics, is regarded by many as the first to knowingly split the atom by artificially inducing a nuclear reaction in 1917 while ...

The claim sparked backlash from officials and social media users in across the country, with many asserting that Rutherford's groundbreaking work is a source of national pride. Ernest Rutherford ...

(AFP via Getty Images) The atom was fully split in a controlled manner in 1932 by British and Irish researchers John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton under Rutherford’s supervision. Mr Trump was ...

Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel Prize winner known as the father of nuclear physics, is regarded by many as the first to knowingly split the atom by artificially inducing a nuclear reaction in 1917 ...

Sir Ernest Rutherford has been called the 'father of nuclear physics' When Donald Trump claimed US scientists split the atom in his inaugural speech, even he could not have imagined the chain ...

Recommended Videos The achievement is also credited to English scientist John Douglas Cockroft and Ireland's Ernest Walton, researchers in 1932 at a British laboratory developed by Rutherford.

Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel Prize winner known as the father of nuclear physics, is regarded by many as the first to knowingly split the atom by artificially inducing a nuclear reaction in 1917 ...