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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.

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>[https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1951/  ''The Nobel Prize in Physics 1951''], Nobelprize.org, 23 Jan 2013</ref>

Cockcroft and Walton "''did not see their experiments as a ''test'' of Einstein's mass-energy relationship; rather, they simply used that relationship in their analysis, assuming it to be valid ''"<ref>Roger H. Stuewer: ''Mass-Energy'' in ''Einstein in Context'', Cambridge University Press</ref> The E=mc&sup2; equation had in fact been proposed, and [[Quantitative_Analysis_of_Alpha_Decay|considered for nuclear decays]], more than 20 years earlier.  The experimental error was too large -- and the scope of the experiment to narrow -- to purport to verify the equation for all artificially accelerated particles.   

Cockcroft and Walton "''did not see their experiments as a ''test'' of Einstein's mass-energy relationship; rather, they simply used that relationship in their analysis, assuming it to be valid ''"<ref>Roger H. Stuewer: ''Mass-Energy'' in ''Einstein in Context'', Cambridge University Press</ref> The E=mc&sup2; equation had in fact been proposed, and [[Quantitative_Analysis_of_Alpha_Decay|considered for nuclear decays]], more than 20 years earlier.  The experimental error was too large -- and the scope of the experiment to narrow -- to purport to verify the equation for all artificially accelerated particles.