Rutherford Gold Foil Experiment - Backstage Science -

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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. Rutherford Gold Foil Experiment - Backstage Science

A detector that would flash when hit by an alpha particle. The Unexpected Result Videos about some of Britain's most amazing science

Chosen because gold is incredibly malleable and can be beaten into a sheet only about 1,000 atoms thick. scientists believed in the

While most did pass through, Rutherford was shocked to find that:

In 1911, Ernest Rutherford and his team (Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden) conducted the "Gold Foil" experiment, which Backstage Science describes as essentially the .