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.

"John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton developed a device ... to Nelson to visit the Lord Rutherford Memorial in Brightwater," he added, "so we can keep the historic record on who split the atom ...

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 ashes of the eminent physicist Ernest, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson were interred in the nave of Westminster Abbey, near to the graves of Newton and Lord Kelvin, on 25 October 1937. The ...

From left, physicists Ernest Walton and John Douglas Cockroft, right, stand with Lord Ernest Rutherford outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, England, on May 2, 1932. Photo: AP Trump’s ...

The Ernest Rutherford Medal and Prize, normally awarded biennially, recognises distinguished research in nuclear physics or nuclear technology and is named in honour of Lord Rutherford of Nelson.

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 ...

Ernest Rutherford (right ... when appointed, to visit the Lord Rutherford Memorial in Brightwater "so we can keep the historic record on who split the atom first accurate". Atoms split naturally ...