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You are here: Home / Science / How Did Ernest Rutherford Pioneer the Planetary Model of the Atom After Conducting His Gold Foil Experiment?

How Did Ernest Rutherford Pioneer the Planetary Model of the Atom After Conducting His Gold Foil Experiment?

May 12, 2020 by Karen Hill

In 1908, Ernest Rutherford conducted his greatest experiment.

First, he directed alpha particles at several different materials and found that they passed through easily.

Rutherford beat a piece of gold leaf into a thinness of one fifty-thousandth of an inch. He estimated that the gold leaf was now about 2,000 atoms thick.

If atoms filled that space and the atom was indestructible, then the particles would not get through. Again, almost all the particles went through easily, a small number of them were slightly deflected by something, and an even smaller number bounced backward.

Rutherford knew that there was only one conclusion: most of the atom must be empty space that allowed the particles to pass through.

He said the positive alpha particles acted just as if they had been repelled by another small, powerful positive charge, a charge concentrated at one point.

Rutherford’s model of the atom started at the center with a tiny, positively charged nucleus (from the Latin for “kernel”) containing most of the mass of the atom. Since an atom has a neutral charge, he had to also account for a negative charge somewhere in the atom.

He returned to Thomson’s electrons, but he knew they were not scattered throughout the atom. He reasoned that the electrons were negatively charged, giving the atom a neutral charge.

To account for the vast amount of empty space within the atom, he concluded that the electrons must be a very great distance from the nucleus. He compared it to our solar system with the planets being electrons and the Sun being the nucleus.

There were still some details to be worked out, but Rutherford’s model was correct.

Scientists were now inside the atom.

Related Facts

  • Who Was Ernest Rutherford and Why Is Ernest Rutherford Known As the Father of Nuclear Physics?
  • How did Ernest Rutherford discover that the atom is mostly empty space?
  • How Is Aluminum Foil Made and Why Is Aluminum Foil Shiny On One Side and Dull On the Other?
  • What Did Ernest Rutherford Discover About Radioactive Bullets and Alpha and Beta Radiation From Uranium?
  • How Did Ernest Rutherford Discover the Length of a Half-Life From the Radioactive Decay of Elements?
  • How Was Ernest Rutherford the First Alchemist To Convert Nitrogen Into Oxygen From a Nuclear Reaction?

Filed Under: Science

About Karen Hill

Karen Hill is a freelance writer, editor, and columnist. Born in New York, her work has appeared in the Examiner, Yahoo News, Buzzfeed, among others.

Previous Post: « When Did Michael Faraday Discover Electromagnetic Induction Which Led To the Invention of the Electric Dynamo?
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