Who was the lead scientist in the team that 'split the atom' for the first time?

Ernest Rutherford was a pioneering physicist who is considered the father of nuclear physics. In 1917, Rutherford conducted an experiment where he bombarded nitrogen gas with alpha particles and observed that hydrogen nuclei were released. While he didn't technically "split the atom" in the sense of nuclear fission (which involves splitting heavy nuclei like uranium), this experiment was the first to demonstrate that nuclear reactions could transmute one element into another. This was a groundbreaking discovery that showed the nucleus of an atom could be altered, effectively "splitting" it open and changing its composition. Alexander Fleming is famous for discovering penicillin, Dylan Thomas was a renowned Welsh poet, and Sir Ian Wilmot was a developmental biologist who cloned Dolly the sheep. While each of these men made significant contributions to their respective fields, none of them were involved in the early experiments that first broke apart the atomic nucleus like Rutherford.