jan 13, 1911 - Nuclear Model - Ernest Rutherford

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Ernest Rutherford (+ Students) . They used positively charged alpha particles and fired them at a thin sheet of gold. If JJ Thomson's theory was correct, then the alpha particles would pass right through the gold. However, some of the alpha particles were deflected to the side and some, straight back. This can only happen if an atom was mostly empty space, meaning that this proved that JJ’ s theory wrong. Rutherford’s theory was the ‘Nuclear Model’, where the negative energy formed a sort of cloud around the positive energy.

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