THE RUTHERFORD MODEL (1911)

THE GOLD FOIL EXPERIMENT

• Ernest Rutherford and his assistant, Hans Geiger, set up the gold foil experiment in 1911 and discovered the nucleus of the atom.

Rutherford shot alpha particles into gold foil. Alpha particles are helium nucleuses. Some of the alpha particles went through the gold foil, other alpha particles deflected off the gold foil. Rutherford concluded that a small, dense nucleus was making the alpha particles deflect. To find the size of the nucleus he measured the fraction of the alpha particles that deflected off the gold foil and the angle measure that it deflected.

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RUTHERFORD MODEL

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