Question

A beam of alpha-particles is bombarded at a piece of gold foil as shown in the figure below.

After striking the gold foil, in which direction do most of the alpha-particles travel?

• A. S
• B. P
• C. Q
• D. R

Answer 1

The correct option is B P

The following are the observations of the gold foil experiment:

• Most of the fast moving α-particles passed straight through the gold foil.
• Some of the $\alpha$ - particles were deflected by the foil by small angles.
• A few α-particles had nearly 180${}^0$ angle of deflection..

Hence, most of the fast moving α-particles will pass through the direction P.