Ernest

Rutherford
Experiment
(Geiger–Marsden experiment)

“It was quite the most incredible event that has ever
happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible
as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper
and it came back and hit you.”
 • Ernest Rutherford was a new Zealand physicist who came to be
known as the father of nuclear physics.
• Born in 1871
• Emigrated to new Zealand with his Scottish parents at the age of
3.
• In his college years he concentrated on electricity and magnetism

Who was and worked mostly independently in the lab on high frequency
magnetic induction and the magnetic viscosity of iron and steel.
• At Cambridge, Rutherford started to work with J. J. Thomson on

Ernest the conductive effects of x-rays on gases, work which led to the
discovery of the electron which Thomson presented to the world
in 1897.

Rutherford? • Following the discovery of radioactivity and new kinds of rays in

1896 in France by Pierre (1859–1906) and Marie curie (1867–
1934) and Henri becquerel (1852–1908), Rutherford shifted from
investigating ionization to studying the rays given off by
radioactive materials. He discovered and named alpha (α) rays
and beta (β) rays
• The experiments which led to the discovery the nucleus of the
atom were performed between 1908 and 1913 by Hans
Geiger and Ernest Marsden under the direction of Ernest
Rutherford at the Physical Laboratories of the University of
Manchester.
 Ernest
Rutherford
 • Radiation is the decay of an atom of a
radioactive element.
• Radioactive elements are those who have a
higher proton to neutron ratio and become

What is
unstable in their nucleus.
• Due to this instability the atom becomes
highly energised and decays into a smaller
Radiation? atom and by doing so releases some type of
particles.
• These particles are alpha, beta and gamma
particles.
• Alpha particles are positively charged helium
atoms, beta particles are electrons and
gamma rays are highly energised light waves.
 What is
Radiation
Note: This is a nuclear fission.
 • Along with Hans Geiger and Ernest
Marsden in 1909, he carried out the Geiger–
Marsden experiment, which demonstrated
the nuclear nature of atoms by
deflecting alpha particles passing through a
thin gold foil.

The Gold • Rutherford was inspired to ask Geiger and

Marsden in this experiment to look for alpha
particles with very high deflection angles, of
Foil a type not expected from any theory of
matter at that time.

Experiment • Such deflections, though rare, were found,

and proved to be a smooth but high-order
function of the deflection angle.
• It was Rutherford's interpretation of this data
that led him to formulate the Rutherford
model of the atom in 1911 – that a very
small charged nucleus, containing much of
the atom's mass, was orbited by low-
mass electrons.
The Gold Foil
Experiment
 • An atom is electrically neutral.
• Negatively charged electrons surround the
nucleus of an atom.
• The positively charged particles and most of
the mass of an atom is concentrated in an
extremely small volume. The region of the

Postulates atom is called nucleus.

• Electrons surrounding the nucleus revolve
around it with very high speed in circular
paths called orbits.
• Electrons being negatively charged and
nucleus being a densely concentrated mass
of positively charged particles are held
together by a strong electrostatic force of
attraction.
 • Rutherford’s model of an atom could not
explain the stability of an atom - According to
him, charged electrons revolve around atom
in circular paths so it should experience
acceleration due to which it should lose
Limitations energy continuously in the form of
electromagnetic radiations and then
eventually fall into the nucleus there by
making the atom unstable.
• Rutherford’s model of an atom could not
explain as to how the electrons are arranged
in the orbits around the nucleus.
Thank You
BY: Prashyanth, Prapti, Srikar