During his inaugural address on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump made several false and misleading statements, including a claim that Americans "split the atom," which sparked strong discontent among New Zealand netizens. They took to social media to point out that this achievement belongs to a highly respected pioneering scientist from New Zealand.
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02-13, 2025Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel laureate, is hailed as the father of nuclear physics. Many believe that he first consciously split the atom through artificial induction of nuclear reactions in 1917 while working at the University of Manchester in England. This achievement is also credited to British scientist John Douglas Cockcroft and Irish scientist Ernest Walton, who conducted research in 1932 at the British laboratory established by Rutherford.
This accomplishment was not achieved by Americans. In his inaugural address on Tuesday, Trump, in an effort to emphasize America's greatness, claimed that Americans "crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved countless dangers, won the West, ended slavery, saved millions from tyranny, lifted millions out of poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, sent humans into space, and placed the universe of human knowledge in human hands."
New Zealand politician and Mayor of Nelson City, Nick Smith, stated that he was "a little surprised" by Trump's claim. Rutherford was born and educated in Nelson. Smith wrote on Facebook: "Rutherford’s pioneering research into radio communication, radioactivity, atomic structure, and ultrasound technology was completed at Cambridge University and Manchester University in England, and McGill University in Montreal, Canada." Smith also stated that he would invite the next U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand to visit Rutherford's birthplace memorial, "so we can maintain the accuracy of the historical record on who first split the atom."
The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of History and Heritage Resources website credits the milestone to Cockcroft and Walton, although the website also describes Rutherford's earlier achievements in mapping the structure of the atom, hypothesizing a central nucleus, and identifying the proton. Trump's remarks sparked a flood of online posts from New Zealanders about Rutherford, whose research is part of the curriculum for New Zealand primary school students, whose name is on buildings, streets, and institutions, and whose portrait is printed on the 100 New Zealand dollar note. Ben Uffindell, editor of the New Zealand satirical news website The Civilian, wrote on X: "Okay, I have to call it. Trump just claimed that America split the atom. That's like the only thing we've ever done."
