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    Rutherford's Model of Atom

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    Absg

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    Rutherford's Model of Atom

    Uploaded by

    Absg
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    28 views2 pages

    Rutherford's Model of Atom

    Uploaded by

    Absg

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    Objective:

    To demonstrate the scattering of alpha particles by gold foil.

    Background:

    Model for the structure of an atom had been first proposed by J.J. Thomson. Later, followed
    many theories however, Rutherford's model was finally accepted as the correct nuclear model.
    Rutherford had shown his model with help of an experiment.

    Rutherford's scattering experiment:

     Rutherford's model of an atom:

    Ernest Rutherford was interested in knowing how the electrons are arranged within an
    atom. Rutherford designed an experiment for this. In this experiment, fast moving alpha (α)-
    particles were made to fall on a thin gold foil.

     He selected a gold foil because he wanted as thin a layer as possible. This gold foil was
    about 1000 atoms thick.
     α-particles are doubly-charged helium ions. Since they have a mass of 4µ, the fast-moving
    α-particles have a considerable amount of energy. 

    It was expected that α-particles would be deflected by the sub-atomic particles in the gold atoms.
    Since the α-particles were much heavier than the protons, he did not expect to see large
    deflections. But, the α-particle scattering experiment gave totally unexpected results.

    Observation:

     Rutherford made fast moving alpha helium particles to fall on the gold foil

     Most of the particles went straight through the gold foil (1000 atoms thick)

     A small number of the helium particles deflected from their path.

     1 out of every 12000 alpha particles made to fall on the gold foil rebounded.
    Conclusion:

     Rutherford concluded that the space between the atom is mostly empty as the alpha
    particles went straight through the foil.

     The size of the nucleus is minute as compared to the whole atom.

     The negative charged electrons revolve around the nucleus in the spiral orbits.

     This led to the discovery of the nucleus which contains the positively charged
    protons.

    Later on, scientist named Neil Bohr answered to the drawbacks of Rutherford’s atomic
    model.

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