Rutherford's experiment with alpha particle scattering by gold fo...

Question

Rutherford's experiment with alpha particle scattering by gold foil established that

Accepted Answer

everyone in this example. We need to explain what the experiment that Ernest Rutherford conducted with alpha particles by scattering them on gold foil concluded. And so we want to first recall the facts about alpha particles. So we should recall that an alpha particle is represented by this symbol here. We want to recall that within an alpha particle we have two protons and two neutrons. And when we add our protons and neutrons recall that it gives us our mass, which is going to equal to four for the alpha particle. And so because we recall that neutrons are neutrally charged and protons are positively charged. That means that alpha particles are positive particles. So we want to next recall that it was, it was thought that alpha particles have protons that are evenly distributed. This was the theory before Ernest Rutherford conducted a specific experiment where he took gold foil. So this is going to be our gold foil. He took an alpha particle and he directly shot it into this gold foil where he also had placed a reflector around the setup for this experiment. And so when this alpha particle was shot through the gold foil, it typically landed in one single position that was reflecting on the reflector. So, in this spot here and so because there was a repetition of this alpha particle beaming through the gold foil and reflecting in the same position with only a few occurrences of the alpha particle deflecting in other areas, but it mainly for a majority of the time, would deflect or reflect right in this area of the reflector. That allowed the scientist earns rather for to determine that the original theory of protons being evenly distributed within the alpha particle is actually incorrect. So because they determined that this is actually not true, they were able to determine that therefore protons and neutrons in alpha particles, our condensed in a single area in the nucleus of the alpha particle. And so because we can understand from this conclusion that this was primarily concerned with the distribution of the protons in this experiment. This would allow us to rule out all the other answer choices which are irrelevant to the point of this entire experiment because the only answer choice that speaks to the distribution of protons being uneven is choice A. And that confirms the fact that Ernest rutherford concluded that alpha particles have protons that are only present in a very dense single area of the nucleus of the alpha particle. So choice A would be the correct choice to complete this example. So I hope that everything we reviewed was clear. If you have any questions, please leave them down below and I will see everyone in the next practice video

Rutherford's experiment with alpha particle scattering by gold foil established that

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