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This '''experiment''' by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton is championed by [[liberals]] as being confirmation  of [[Albert Einstein]]'s famous formula ''[[E=mc&sup2;]]'',<ref>[http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/31864 Mike Poole ''Cockcroft's subatomic legacy: splitting the atom''], Cern Courier, Nov 20, 2007</ref> even though no such claim was made by the experimenters at the time and experimental error was too large for it confirm the formula.  Moreover, an isolated experiment such as this could not demonstrate the sweeping claim made by the formula.

This '''experiment''' by John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton is championed by [[physicists]] as being confirmation  of [[Albert Einstein]]'s famous formula ''[[E=mc&sup2;]]'',<ref>[http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/31864 Mike Poole ''Cockcroft's subatomic legacy: splitting the atom''], Cern Courier, Nov 20, 2007</ref> even though no such claim was made by the experimenters at the time and experimental error was too large for it confirm the formula.  Moreover, an isolated experiment such as this could not demonstrate the sweeping claim made by the formula.

Conducted in April 1932 at the [[University of Cambridge]]'s [[Cavendish Laboratory]] in England,  the physicists Cockroft and Walton successfully split [[lithium]] atom [[nucleus|nuclei]] by colliding them with artificially accelerated protons. This experiment is general hailed as being the first transmutation of an element using artificially accelerated particles, for which they were honored with the [[Nobel Prize]] in 1951.<ref>[http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1951/  ''The Nobel Prize in Physics 1951''], Nobelprize.org, 23 Jan 2013</ref>

Conducted in April 1932 at the [[University of Cambridge]]'s [[Cavendish Laboratory]] in England,  the physicists Cockroft and Walton successfully split [[lithium]] atom [[nucleus|nuclei]] by colliding them with artificially accelerated protons. This experiment is general hailed as being the first transmutation of an element using artificially accelerated particles, for which they were honored with the [[Nobel Prize]] in 1951.<ref>[http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1951/  ''The Nobel Prize in Physics 1951''], Nobelprize.org, 23 Jan 2013</ref>

As explained by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:<ref>https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equivME/</ref>

As explained by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:<ref>https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equivME/</ref>

{{cquote|As Stuewer (1993) has suggested, Cockcroft and Walton '''''use''''' mass-energy equivalence to confirm their hypothesis about what happens when 7Li is bombarded by protons. Hence, it does not seem we ought to regard this experiment as a confirmation of E<nowiki>=</nowiki>mc&sup2; }}

{{cquote|As Stuewer (1993) has suggested, Cockcroft and Walton use mass-energy equivalence to confirm their hypothesis about what happens when ⁷Li is bombarded by protons. Hence, it does not seem we ought to regard this experiment as a confirmation of E<nowiki>=</nowiki>mc&sup2;. However, if we take some of the other evidence that Cockcroft and Walton provide concerning the identification of the products in reaction p + ⁷Li → α + α as sufficient to establish that the products are indeed α-particles, then we can interpret this experiment as a confirmation of mass-energy equivalence, which is how this experiment is often reported in the physics literature.}}

Others have asserted that Cockcroft and Walton did discovery some kind of confirmation of the E=mc&sup2; equation, such as physicist Kenneth Bainbridge in 1933:

Others have asserted that Cockcroft and Walton did discovery some kind of confirmation of the E=mc&sup2; equation, such as physicist Kenneth Bainbridge in 1933: