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Look in detail at Rutherford¶s experiment

Discussion :

1. A finding of experiment.

Ernest Rutherford had been studying alpha particles since 1898. In fact, he discovered
them. To him, alpha particles were part of the family. In 1909 he was confronted with
some rather bizzare alpha-particle behavior that he had to explain. What was the
behavior, exactly?

Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden aimed a stream of alpha particles at a thin gold foil for
several months in 1909. (They would continue studying scattering until 1913.) Geiger
cites a thickness of 8.6 x 10¯6 cm. for the foil. In fact, the foil was so thin that it had to be
supported on a glass plate. (The plate without any foil was studied and no deflections
were found. It was transparent to the alpha particles.) There were three major findings:

1) Almost all of the alpha particles went through the gold foil as if it were not even
there. Those alpha particles, of course, continued on a straight-line path until
they hit the detector screen.

2) Some of the alpha particles were deflected only slightly, usually 2° or less.
Geiger found that an alpha particle was, on average, deflected about 1/200th of a
degree by each single encounter with a gold atom. The most probable angle of
deflection for one gold foil turned out to be about 1°. (Rutherford cites a figure of
0.87° in his 1911 paper.)

3) A very, very few (1 in 8000 for platinum foil) alpha particles were turned through
an angle of 90° or more. (Rutherford cites 1 in 20,000 for gold in his 1911 paper.)
This is a diagram incorporating the three findings. R is the source of alpha particles and
F is the foil that scatters the alpha particles. M is the microscope used to look at the
detector screen which was attached to the front of the microscope.

The flashes on the screen were very faint, so a very dark room was required. The
person doing the viewing had to sit in the dark for about an hour before beginning the
experiment, to ensure maximum eye sensitivity.

All Rutherford had to do was explain how it all fit together.

2. Recollecting the significance of Rutherford¶s experiment

a) What idea of the atom did it suggest?

The nuclear model.

b) What model of the atom did this replace?

Thomson¶s µplum pudding¶ model, in which atoms are seen as essentially small
balls composed of a mixture of positive and negative electric charge, with no
concentration of charge at any particular position.
c) Is µplum pudding¶ a good name for the model?

Yes, if you see the negative electrons dispersed throughout a spherical lump of
continuous positive charge, not so good if the volume of the atom has both
positive and negative particles continuously distributed through it

d) Why did Rutherford ask for the experiment to be done?

Experiments on the absorption of b particles had also shown that sometimes the
b particles were µback scattered¶. Rutherford suggested that Geiger and Marsden
should try looking for similar behavior with particles. Rutherford thought it was
highly unlikely; because a particles are relatively massive compared with
electrons, it was predicted that the as would simply suffer a series of small
deflections. They were expected to travel more or less straight through the
absorber. However, Rutherford¶s main concern was to give Geiger and Marsden
something to do that would occupy them and get them some useful hands-on
experience, rather than expecting them to get any very exciting results.

e) Refer to diagram of the apparatus. The absorber was a thin gold metal foil. Why
use gold? Why thin?

Thin gold foils, typically 250 atoms thick, were easy to make and readily available
as are easily absorbed.