jan 1, 1911 - Ernest Rutherford's discovery

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Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus in 1911 he conducted an experiment that was utilizing a thin sheet of gold and a screen coated with zinc sulfide. After getting that sheet, he used radium and threw it at the gold foil. He had hypothesized that the alpha particles would just go straight through foil. Many particles did just that but some were getting reflected back at angles of more than 180°. After getting this result he could only determine that the entire positive charge of an atom must be concentrated in a small area (nucleus). He also found out that since many of the particles pass through the foil, the majority of the space in an atom will be empty. So now Thomson had found out about the electrons and Rutherford found out about the nucleus. We now have a better understanding of the structure of an atom.

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