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    Physics A2

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    Faisal Anwar
    Rutherford's gold foil experiment provided evidence for the nuclear model of the atom. When alpha particles were fired at a thin gold foil, [1] most passed straight through but a small percentage were deflected at large angles or rebounded backwards. This suggested the atom is mostly empty space with a small, massive positively charged nucleus at the center. If Thomson's "plum pudding" model was correct with a uniform positive charge, alpha particles would have passed straight through with little deflection.

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    Physics A2

    Uploaded by

    Faisal Anwar
    197 views4 pages
    Rutherford's gold foil experiment provided evidence for the nuclear model of the atom. When alpha particles were fired at a thin gold foil, [1] most passed straight through but a small percentage were deflected at large angles or rebounded backwards. This suggested the atom is mostly empty space with a small, massive positively charged nucleus at the center. If Thomson's "plum pudding" model was correct with a uniform positive charge, alpha particles would have passed straight through with little deflection.

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    Probing matter: Particle Physics

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    Rutherford's gold foil experiment provided evidence for the nuclear model of the atom. When alpha particles were fired at a thin gold foil, [1] most passed straight through but a small percentage were deflected at large angles or rebounded backwards. This suggested the atom is mostly empty space with a small, massive positively charged nucleus at the center. If Thomson's "plum pudding" model was correct with a uniform positive charge, alpha particles would have passed straight through with little deflection.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    197 views4 pages

    Physics A2

    Uploaded by

    Faisal Anwar
    Rutherford's gold foil experiment provided evidence for the nuclear model of the atom. When alpha particles were fired at a thin gold foil, [1] most passed straight through but a small percentage were deflected at large angles or rebounded backwards. This suggested the atom is mostly empty space with a small, massive positively charged nucleus at the center. If Thomson's "plum pudding" model was correct with a uniform positive charge, alpha particles would have passed straight through with little deflection.

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    of 4

    Al Nahda National Schools (Boys) Class: 12G, H & I Teacher: Nidal Al Halabi

    I. A Nuclear atom i. Dalton model of the atom:

    Physics Probing Matter

    The atom is simply a hard solid sphere. ii. Thomson model of the atom:

    Thomson discovered that tiny negatively charged bits could be removed from an atom leaving behind a positively charged ion. So Thomson proposed a model of the atom. The model pictured a positively-charged material containing negatively-charged electrons. The Thomson proposal became popularly known as the plum pudding model of the atom.

    iii.

    Rutherford Model of the Atom:

    To test Thomson's model, Ernest Rutherford and some of his students directed particles at a thin gold foil in vacuum. They placed a zinc sulphide screen near enough to the foil to detect any alpha particles that got through. The zinc sulphide would give off a flash of light whenever struck by an particle. They expected that the -particles would go almost straight through the foil because the positively charged -particles would only encounter weak electric forces and there is no concentrated charge or mass to hit.

    Rutherfords observations: (i) Most -particles pass straight through, (ii) Some were deflected (iii) Very few came straight back or deflect through large angle. Rutherford model (also called nuclear model): An atom is mainly empty space surrounding a tiny nucleus, which contains most the mass of the atom and all the positive charge. (See the table page 79). Note that in the alpha particle scattering experiment: i. ii. The alpha source was inside the container, because alpha would be absorbed by container. The alpha particles had the same initial kinetic energy, so that kinetic energy does not have an effect on the observations. The container was evacuated so that alphas do not ionise atoms of air or so that all alphas reach the foil with the same kinetic energy

    iii.

    Expected behaviour

    Rutherfords Explanation 2

    II.

    Nuclear structure In 1932 James Chadwick published his proposal for the existence of a new particle which he called a neutron. The nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons, collectively known as nucleons. The neutrons help to bind the nucleus together as they exert a strong nuclear force on other nucleons, and they act as a space buffer between the mutually repelling positive charges of the protons. Elements are defined by the proton number or the atomic number Z. Atoms (or nuclei) with the same Z but different number of neutrons N are known as isotopes. These have different masses but the same chemical properties. The mass number or the nucleon number A=Z+N determines approximately the mass of the nucleus in atomic mass units. An atomic mass unit u is equal to one twelfth the mass of an atom of Carbon-12, 1u = 1.66 10-27Kg. A particular nucleus defined by A and Z is known as a nuclide:

    Questions: 1. In the Rutherford scattering experiment, fast-moving alpha particles were fired at a thin gold foil. What observations from this experiment suggested that the atom has a small, massive nucleus? Suggest what Geiger and Marsden would have observed if the plum pudding model had been correct. Explain your answer. The diagram shows the path followed by one alpha particle which passes close to a gold nucleus N: 79Au

    2.

    3.

    Y A X N
    Add arrows to the diagram at points X and Y to show the direction of the force on the alpha particle when it is at each of these points. 3

    Calculate the electric force between the alpha particle and the gold nucleus when they are 5 10 -14 m apart. Explain, in terms of energy transformation, why the alpha particle rebounds from the gold nucleus. The speed of the alpha particle was the same at points A and B. On the axes below, sketch a graph showing how the speed would vary with distance along the path from A to B.
    Speed

    0 A P B Distance

    With reference to the forces you added to the previous diagram, explain the shape of the graph. The diagram below shows the path of the alpha particle again.

    Add a line to this diagram to show the path which would be followed by an alpha particle which was travelling initially along the same line as before, but more slowly. The evidence for a small, massive nucleus from Rutherford scattering might have been less convincing if the alpha particles used had been of lower energy. Suggest how the observations would have changed if lower energy alpha particles had been used.

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