Question

What observations in the scattering experiment led Rutherford to make the following conclusions:

Most of the space in an atom is empty.

Answer 1

In Rutherford's gold foil experiment, the structure of an atom was determined.

1. Rutherford used a thin gold foil and bombarded it with radioactive alpha particles and observed the results.
2. One of the conclusions made was that the atom is mostly empty space while some parts are densely occupied but in a very small size.
3. This was observed as most of the incident rays passed through the foil undeflected while only a small share of rays got deflected at a certain angle.
4. The majority of rays passing through the foil, unchanged, led to the conclusion that the atom is mostly empty space.