Question

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

The whole mass of an atom is present in the center of the atom.

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 whole mass of an atom is present in the center of the atom.
3. The incident alpha particles were thrown in all directions, and a few even bounced back toward the source. Such tremendous repulsion could only be explained by a positively charged and relatively hefty target particle, such as the suggested nucleus which repelled almost completely a beam of positively charged radiations.