Why did Rutherford did the Gold Foil experiment?

Question

I dont understand some articles about this. Its complicated for me please explain simply why did Rutherford did the Gold Foil experiment? and What happend to this said experiment. Need the Answer As soon as possible for tomorrows report. Thanks.

Answer 1

As Bruce said.

Rutherford fold that the positive charge of an atom was concentrated in a tiny, almost point like concentration in the centre of the atom, since the positive He ions were totally deflected a very small portion of the time.

At the time, scientists believed in the Plum Pudding model. They believed the electrons were embedded in a cloud of positive charge, so this was a surprising result. It has been likened to a tank firing a shell at a piece of tissue paper and seeing it bounce back!  

Answer 2

It proved that the electrons orbited the nucleus of the atom.  

Answer 3

The term "the gold foil experiment" came much later.  Rutherford didn't call it that.  Rutherford was the leading authority on radiation and in 1907 accepted the physics chair at the University of Manchester.  You may recall that Rutherford (while in Canada, McGill University) discovered the three types of radiation and named them alpha, beta and gamma.  He was very interested in alpha radiation, particularly the phenomenon known as "backscatter".  At Manchester he assigned the task of studying the scattering of alpha particles as they pass through materials to Hans Geiger.  Geiger in turn was looking for someone to do much of the work and enlisted the help of an undergraduate student, Ernest Marsden.

Together Geiger and Marsden built a device in which they could study the scattering of alpha particles by gold foil.  Since alpha particles are affected by air, (Alphas have a range in air of about 2.5 cm) the device had to be evacuated (The gold and alpha emitter were in a vacuum.)   The date collected by Geiger and Marsden over the span of almost a year was passed on to Rutherford.

It took until 1911 for Rutherford to make sense of the data and formulate an explanation, which we now know as the Rutherford model of the atom.  But the interesting thing is that Rutherford didn't set out to discover the nucleus.  He simply wanted to know more about the scattering of alpha particles.  Therefore, he referred to it simply as the "alpha scattering experiments".

At first, Rutherford assumed that there was something in the gold that the alpha particles were bouncing off of.  But the pattern of the deflections of the alpha particles didn't fit a collision model.

Instead, he concluded that the positively charge alpha particles must be repelled by an area of positive charge in the gold.  Since most of the alpha particles passed through undeflected, this area of positive charge had to be very small.

This led him to conclude that the atom was mostly empty space and had a small, dense, positively charged nucleus.  Remember, this was before anyone knew anything about protons and neutrons.  It was several years after this that Rutherford discovered the proton and it was not until 1932 that the neutron was discovered.

Answer 4

It proved that the atoms were not "solid", and that there was some sort of cloud surrounding it

Answer 5

The Gold Foil experiment which is also known as the alpha scattering experiment was done by Ernest Rutherford to disprove the plum pudding model.

Observations:

1. Most of the alpha particles passed through undeflected.

2. A few passed through with large angles of deflection.

3. A few bounced back in the direction from which they came.

He pictured the atom as mostly epty space to explain why most alpha particles passed through undeflected. this is a tiny, positive central core called the nucleus where the mass of the atom is concentrated. When an alpha particle ocassionally runs into the nucleus, it is repelled. The electrons move around the nucleus.

Interpretation:

1. Since most of the alpha particles passed through the metal foil in a straight path, then the atoms of the metal foil must be mostly empty space.

2. They bounced back upon hitting the metal foil. They must have hit a tiny solid portion of each atom. He called this the NUCLEUS.

3. Some of the alpha particles were scattered, they were probably repelled by the atomic nuclei. This indicated that the atomic nuclei are also positively charged.