Question

( i give 100 points and branliest DO NOT COPY AND PASTE )

In Rutherford's gold foil experiment, the alpha particles that traveled through the gold foil hit the screen behind it in more than one spot. Explain the significance of this finding and the discovery it led to.

Your answer:

Answer 1

In the gold foil experiment, Rutherford fired alpha particles (which are nuclei of helium) at a thing gold foil, and then he observed the angular distribution of the scattered alpha particles beyond the foil.

He made the following observations:

• Most of the alpha particles passed through the foil mostly undeflected

• Some of the alpha particles were instead deflected at very large angles

• A few of the alpha particles were even reflected back to the original direction

According to these observations, he made the following conclusions:

• The vast majority of the space in an atom is empty, as most of the the alpha particles pass undeflected

• The atoms have a central nucleus containing a large positive charge, to explain the large deflections of some alpha particles

• The nucleus of the atom is very  tiny and contains most of the mass of the atom, to explain the alpha particles reflected back

This experiment therefore contribute to improve the model of the atom: the previous model was the Thomson model (plum-pudding model), but the experiment proved that this was not the right model, and the experiment lead to a new model, in which the atom is believed to consists of a tiny, positive nucleus surrounded by negatively charged electrons orbiting around the nucleus at a very large distance from it.

Learn more at:

https://brainly.com/question/14902167