OBJECTIVES:

• Describe the Rutherford’s experiments and his contribution to the atomic structure.
 Who
Where are
discovered
these sub
Who coined neutron?
particles
the word
located?
atom?

ATOMS

What does Which sub

word atom particles
mean? make atom?
What makes one
atom different
from other?
ELEMENTS ARE MADE OF
ATOMS = THE SMALLEST
PARTICLE THAT HAS ALL THE
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
ELEMENT
• An atom is made up of three subatomic
particles-
protons , electrons and neutrons .

The mass of an atom is concentrated in

nucleus located at the center consisting of
protons and neutrons.

•Electrons revolve around the nucleus in an

area called shells or orbitals.
Atoms are so small; we cannot see them through the compound
microscope we use in our laboratory.
A scanning tunneling microscope makes it possible to see individual
atoms but it will give you hazy pictures of atoms.
So how did we
come to know
about the sub-
atomic particles in
an atom like
electrons,
protons and
neutrons?
 Early Philosophers
We will make two sections of • Democritus
people who laid the
foundations of what we know • John Dalton
about atoms today – the early
philosophers and the scientists.
Scientists
• J.J. Thomson

• Ernest Rutherford
“ATOM” & DEMOCRITUS (PHILOSOPHER)

• 460 BC
• He believed that the matter is made up of tiny
particles which cannot be further subdivided.
• He called these particles as ATOMA.
• Atoma (Greek) means uncuttable or indivisible
• No experimental evidence
 PLATO AND ARISTOTLE (PHILOSOPHERS)

• Plato the famous Greek philosopher believed that the matter is

infinitely divisible.
• This was again repeated by Plato’s student Aristotle.
• Though we now know that Plato and Aristotle were wrong to
assume that but being highly influential in their fields, the notion
went largely unchallenged until the early 1800s!
 SCIENTISTS

These were the people who preferred to verify things by

doing practical experiments rather than abstract thinking
and assumptions.
 ANTOINE LAVOISIER (1743-1794)

HIS THEORY IS KNOWN AS ‘LAW OF CONSERVATION OF MASS’

• Lavoisier supported Democritus’ particle theory because he

found that the total mass of reactants = total mass of the
products.
• This is possible only when the reactants are made up of small
particles which rearrange to form products thus retaining the
total mass.
 DALTON’S ATOMIC THEORY (1808)

• Dalton explained Lavoisier’s - law of conservation of mass

with his atomic theory of matter.
• All matter is composed of tiny indivisible particles called
atoms.
• Atoms of the same element are identical
• He explained that chemical reactions are rearrangements of atoms
in reactant to form a product and hence the mass is always
conserved.
• He clearly differentiated elements and compounds.
• He thus suggested that atoms were tiny spheres that were able to
bounce around with perfect elasticity and called them atoms.
• He believed that atoms could not be further subdivided.
DALTON’S ATOMIC THEORY

• Much of Dalton’s theory is accepted …except ?

• Except that atoms are indivisible AND that all atoms of

an element are identical
 JOSEPH JOHN THOMSON & THE ‘PLUM PUDDING MODEL’
• In 1898 Joseph John Thomson found that atoms could sometimes eject a far smaller negative
particle which he called ‘corpuscules’. George Stoney later named them as electrons.
• In 1904 Thomson developed the idea that an atom was made up of electrons scattered unevenly
within an elastic sphere surrounded by a soup of positive charge to balance the electrons charge
like plums surrounded by pudding. This model came to be known as PLUM PUDDING
MODEL.
• His model proposed that negatively charged particles were randomly distributed within a
pudding of positively charged particles
• Henry Becquerel was the first to observe spontaneous emissions
of radiation emitted by heavy metal Uranium.
• Marie curie and Pierre curie then took the study of radioactivity
further and discovered two more radioactive materials polonium
and radium.
ERNEST RUTHERFORD AND GOLD FOIL SCATTERING
EXPERIMENT

• Ernest Rutherford discovered and named two of the three

types of radiations emitted by radioactive
• substances viz alpha and beta particles, the third gamma
radiation was identified by Paul Ulrich Villard.
• These were named in the order of the discovery and were
assigned the first three letters of Greek alphabet.
• Alpha particles (these were positively charge particles containing two protons and two
neutrons just like a helium nuclei. It would not be wrong if we say that an alpha particle is
helium nuclei. The penetrating power of alpha particles was very less, they can only pass
through thin sheets of paper and metal foils.)
• Beta particles (these were fast moving negative particles equivalent to electrons. The only
difference between beta particles and electrons is that beta particles emerge from nucleus
while electrons revolve around the nucleus. )
• Gamma radiations (these were like light which was not visible to eyes)
• In 1910, Ernest Rutherford supervised Geiger and Marsden carrying
out his famous experiment of Gold foil.
• They to study the Thomson’s plum pudding model which said that atom
contains negatively charged electrons in a positively charged fluid.
• They expected that if they fire alpha particles on a thin sheet of metal
like gold (gold was used because it is highly malleable and can be
beaten into very fine sheets) all the alpha particles will pass through the
sheet.
 However, when they fired alpha particles at a piece of gold foil
which was only a few atoms thick the results were different.

• Most of the particles passed through the foil

• A small number of particles were deflected by the tiny nucleus.
• Few of them even bounced back
• He concluded the volume of the atom was mostly empty space
very few alpha most of the alpha particles
particles were passed through the foil =
bounced straight most of the part of the atom is
back = all the less dense.
positive charge
is concentrated
at the centre of
an atom. small number of
alpha particles were
deflected =
all the positive
charge concentrated
at one point of atom.
• Rutherford’s new evidence allowed him to
propose a more detailed model with a central
nucleus.

• He coined the word proton for positive charge

in the central nucleus.
In 1932, his student – James Chadwick proved that the neutral
particles in the nucleus are Neutrons
https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/rutherford-scattering/latest/
rutherford-scattering_en.html