Rutherford scattering experiments
Experiments revealing the atomic nucleus via alpha particle scattering.
By measuring how an alpha particle beam is scattered when it strikes a thin metal foil, scientists learned that every atom has a nucleus where all of its positive charge and most of its mass is concentrated.
- field
- Physics
- known_for
- Discovery of the atomic nucleus through alpha particle scattering
- key_figures
- Ernest Rutherford, Hans Geiger, Ernest Marsden
- location
- Physical Laboratories of the University of Manchester
Lore & Background
Ernest Rutherford was Langworthy Professor of Physics at the Victoria University of Manchester. He had already received numerous honours for his studies of radiation and had discovered alpha rays, beta rays, and gamma rays. Ernest Marsden was a physics undergraduate student studying under Geiger.
Reader's Guide
The Rutherford scattering experiments overturned the prevailing Thomson model of the atom, which proposed that positive charge was spread throughout a spherical volume. Geiger and Marsden discovered that metal foils could scatter some alpha particles in all directions, sometimes more than 90°, which was impossible according to Thomson's model. The experiments initiated the development of the planetary Rutherford model of the atom and eventually the Bohr model.
Did You Know?
- The counter that Geiger and Rutherford built proved unreliable because alpha particles were being too strongly deflected by collisions with air molecules.
- Thomson's model was consistent with experimental evidence available at the time, but the extreme scattering observed forced Rutherford to revise the model.
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