jan 1, 1911 - Ernest Rutherford"s huge discovery while using the gold foil experiment [4]

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Ernest Rutherford in 1911 by using the gold foil experiment where he used an alpha ray emitter to go through a small, thin sheet. During this experiment a few of the rays bounced back which made him realize that most of the charges of an atom are in one specific location called the nucleus. Also, the ones that did not bounce back proved that an atom is a mostly empty space. This was huge because it was now understood that instead of the empty space around electrons being positive there was actually a center called the nucleus that contained the positive charge. This helped him to create the Rutherford model where there is a nucleus in the center with positive particles and then electrons outside the nucleus in mostly empty space.

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