Videos about some of Britain's most amazing science facilities
At the time, scientists believed in the , where an atom was a blob of positive charge with electrons scattered inside like fruit in a pudding. If this were true, the heavy alpha particles should have whizzed straight through the "soft" atoms.
To look inside the atom, Rutherford needed to fire something at it. He used: Rutherford Gold Foil Experiment - Backstage Science
While most did pass through, Rutherford was shocked to find that:
Chosen because gold is incredibly malleable and can be beaten into a sheet only about 1,000 atoms thick. Videos about some of Britain's most amazing science
Positively charged particles emitted from a radioactive source (radium).
A detector that would flash when hit by an alpha particle. The Unexpected Result He used: While most did pass through, Rutherford
In 1911, Ernest Rutherford and his team (Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden) conducted the "Gold Foil" experiment, which Backstage Science describes as essentially the .