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Trump challenged by New Zealand mayor after he claims US ‘split the atom’ during inauguration

Trump challenged by New Zealand mayor after he claims US ‘split the atom’ during inauguration

Trump challenged by New Zealand mayor after he claims US ‘split the atom’ during inauguration

Nick Smith, the mayor of Nelson, challenged Trump’s claim Americans split the atom, stating the feat was actually achieved by New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford

Agence France-Presse

Published: 5:17pm, 21 Jan 2025

A small town mayor in New Zealand has picked a nuclear fight with Donald Trump, after the freshly sworn-in US president heaped praise on American scientists for splitting the atom.

Trump’s inauguration address rattled off a list of crowning American feats such as ending slavery, launching into space, and the moment they “split the atom”.

The mayor of Nelson seized on the subatomic slight, pointing out that New Zealand-born physicist Ernest Rutherford pioneered work to split the atom.

“I was a bit surprised by new President Donald Trump in his inauguration speech about US greatness claiming today Americans ‘split the atom’ when that honour belongs to Nelson’s most famous and favourite son Sir Ernest Rutherford,” mayor Nick Smith wrote on social media.

Nick Smith
Nick Smith, the mayor of Nelson, New Zealand, has questioned Donald Trump’s claiming that Americans “split the atom”. Photo: SCMP/Handout

Credited with splitting the nucleus of an atom during experiments at UK’s Manchester University in 1917, Rutherford was “the first to artificially induce a nuclear reaction by bombarding nitrogen nuclei with alpha particles”, Smith said.

He added that he would invite the incoming US ambassador to visit the Rutherford memorial in Nelson, population 50,000, “so we can keep the historic record on who split the atom first accurate”.

Lord Rutherford
British scientists Dr. E.T.S. Walton (left) and Dr. F.D. Cockroft (right) stand with Lord Rutherford outside the Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, United Kingdom in May 1932. Photo: AP

Widely regarded as the “father of nuclear physics”, Rutherford was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908 for earlier work on radioactivity.

He remains one of New Zealand’s most famous sons, and his face still adorns the country’s 100 dollar note.


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