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

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.

Ernest Rutherford, born in Nelson, New Zealand, and educated in Brightwater, is renowned for his work in nuclear physics. In 1917, while at Victoria University of Manchester in England ...

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 ...

Ernest Rutherford (right) and Hans Geiger led the experiments in Manchester [University of Manchester] Scientists based in Manchester, not the US, made the "key breakthrough" in splitting the atom ...

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 ...

When Donald Trump claimed US scientists split the atom in his inaugural speech, even he could not have imagined the chain reaction of online debate his boast would cause. Many of those leaping on ...