This contradicted Thompson’s model as most of the atom was observed to be virtually made of space. Observations and Conclusions from Rutherford’s Experiment He did notice that the majority of the alpha rays passed through the gold foil in a straight line and only a few reflected in different directions.Īpart from this, more observations were then obtained by Rutherford. As a source of alpha rays, he used the radioactive element polonium. Rutherford induced alpha rays to collide with a gold foil. Rutherford carried out an experiment in which he bombarded a thin sheet of gold foil with α-particles and then analysed the track of these particles after they collided with the gold foil.
Ernest Rutherford, a British scientist, did an experiment and based on what he saw, he came up with a theory about the atoms of elements and came up with the Rutherford Atomic Model. Thomson’s plum pudding model didn't work well when he tried to explain some experiments about how elements have atoms. He postulated that the atom was like a Pudding with the mass and positive charge distributed across its surface and electrons embedded in the pudding-like plums. So, if there was a negative charge and the atom was electrically neutral, there had to be a positive charge. JJ Thomson proposed the Plum Pudding Model shortly after he observed the presence of negatively charged particles that he named electrons. The Atom was then considered to be indivisible, but when JJ Thompson discovered negatively charged particles in the atom, the norm was challenged, and the scientific community set out on another expedition.
There have been many scientists who have proposed different models of the atom, right from the ancient Greeks and Indians. The discovery and research of quarks is a step in that direction. Originally, an atom was thought to be the smallest unit (atomic meaning unbreakable) in existence, but that theory has since been proved redundant by the discovery of subatomic particles and research is still underway to find out if these subatomic particles still can be split further. It is common knowledge today that an atom consists of electrons, protons, and neutrons.