What happened in Rutherford's gold foil experiment?

Question

and why was it significant in the development of atomic models?

Answer 1

it basically surmised that most of atom is space, with the TINY nucleus carrying 99.9% of the weight on an atom

Answer 2

This experiment involved the firing of radioactive particles through minutely thin metal foils (notably gold) and detecting them using screens coated with zinc sulfide (a scintillator). Rutherford found that although the vast majority of particles passed straight through the foil approximately 1 in 8000 were deflected leading him to his theory that most of the atom was made up of 'empty space'.

This resulted in the description of the atomic structure as a nucleus orbited by electrons.

Answer 3

in this experiment Ruther ford tried to examine the nature of an atom this also indicated the atomic structure by detecting what happens to the path of a particle he concluded that:
1. Most of the mass of an atom is empty space
2. postively charged particles passed straight through the foil but others changed direction and a few were deflected reversing their direction
3. particles only change direction when they come close to some type of dense ie. nucleus which is positively charged region of an atom.

this is in my own words hope u find it easier

Answer 4

Are you talking about boyles law?
well the gold can be strecthed very thin.
he took a sheet of gold and shot particles through it. By doing this he found out that atoms had lot of space between the eletron and the nuclies. The experment showed that most of the particles went throw the gold and a very few would crash into the particles in the gold.


hope this helps
-David-

Answer 5

Particles were able to pass through the foil, suggesting that there is some gap between the atoms.