2006-10-13 22:42:39 · 5 answers · asked by eswar rao 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
A huge part of all atoms is empty space. If the atom was the size of a baseball stadium, the nucleus would be the size of a baseball.
Only the particles that hit the nucleus are bounced back, so most particles simply shoot on through.
2006-10-13 22:52:05 · answer #1 · answered by Veregere 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Before this experiment, people thought the atom is one solid particle (the plum pudding model). His experiment show that the atom is not one big chunky solid model. Instead the atom is composed of a highly positve core, and a lot of empty space and very small electrons (well, later this theory will be modified and we get electron clouds instead). Most of the particles pass though the foil with little interference because all they hit was the the empty space, however a lucky few will hit the nucleus and get bounced back. The 1/10,000 shows you the relative size of the nucleus compare to the distance between gold atom nucleuses.
For details look in wikipedia or google it.
2006-10-14 05:57:22 · answer #2 · answered by Dianna 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Rutherford conjectured that this was because the nucleus of gold particles was very small compared with the distance separating the atoms in the gold film.
2006-10-14 05:47:42 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
this happens b'cause of the negligibly small space occupied by the positive centre i.e.nucleus( protons and neutrons) as compared to the large space occupied by the negatively charged electrons moving around the nucleus.Therefore the probability of a positively charged alpha particle getting repelled by the nucleus is very small.
2006-10-14 05:54:18 · answer #4 · answered by anurag p 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
bcoz the one electron had to go to latrine
2006-10-14 10:23:23 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋