X rays and alpha particles.............is u a wave or a particle.............mr electron???????


Rutherford's find came from a very strange experience. Everyone at that time imagined the atom as a "plum pudding." That is, it was roughly the same consistency throughout, with negatively-charged electrons scattered about in it like raisins in a pudding. As part of an experiment with x-rays in 1909, Rutherford was shooting a beam of alpha particles (or alpha rays, emitted by the radioactive element radium) at a sheet of gold foil only 1/3000 of an inch thick, and tracing the particles' paths. Most of the particles went right through the foil, which would be expected if the atoms in the gold were like a plum pudding. But every now and then, a particle bounced back as though it had hit something solid. After tracing many particles and examining the patterns, Rutherford deduced that the atom must have nearly all its mass, and positive charge, in a central nucleus about 10,000 times smaller than the atom itself. All of the negative charge was held in the electrons, which must orbit the dense nucleus like planets around the sun.