WELLINGTON, New Zealand — During U.S. President Donald Trump’s inaugural address on Tuesday, his assertion that Americans split the atom sparked online debate among New Zealanders, who attributed the achievement to a highly regarded national scientist.
Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel laureate known as the father of nuclear physics, is widely recognized for achieving the first artificial nuclear reaction in 1917 while at a Manchester university.
This accomplishment is also credited to British scientist John Douglas Cockroft and Irish scientist Ernest Walton, who, in 1932, conducted research at a British laboratory founded by Rutherford. Americans are not credited with this achievement.
Trump’s address included the claim that Americans “crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted millions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand.”
New Zealand politician Nick Smith, the mayor of Nelson, Rutherford’s birthplace, expressed surprise at the claim.
“Rutherford’s groundbreaking research on radio communication, radioactivity, the structure of the atom and ultrasound technology were conducted at Cambridge and Manchester Universities in the UK and McGill University in Montreal, Canada,” Smith stated.
Smith proposed inviting the next U.S. ambassador to New Zealand to visit Rutherford’s birthplace memorial “to ensure the historical record accurately reflects who first split the atom.”
A relevant website attributes the milestone to Cockroft and Walton, while acknowledging Rutherford’s earlier contributions to understanding atomic structure, including identifying the proton and postulating a central nucleus.
Trump’s remarks prompted numerous online posts by New Zealanders about Rutherford, whose work is taught in New Zealand schools and whose name is on many buildings, streets, and institutions. His portrait is featured on the 100-dollar banknote.
“Okay, I’ve gotta call time. Trump just claimed America split the atom,” Ben Uffindell, editor of the satirical New Zealand news website The Civilian, commented. “That’s THE ONE THING WE DID.”