Rutherford Model of the Atom: Definition & Diagram
Though it is no longer the most accurate representation of an atom, at the time Rutherford’s model was revolutionary. Learn about the development of the model of the atom and how it changed throughout history, then assess your knowledge with a quiz.
Definition of the Rutherford Model
In many ways, the Rutherford model of the atom is the classic model of the atom, even though it’s no longer considered an accurate representation. Rutherford’s model shows that an atom is mostly empty space, with electrons orbiting a fixed, positively charged nucleus in set, predictable paths.
This model of an atom was developed by Ernest Rutherford, a New Zealand native working at the University of Manchester in England in the early 1900s. Rutherford spent most of his academic career researching aspects of radioactivity and, in 1908, won the Nobel Prize for his discoveries related to radioactivity. It was after this that Rutherford began developing his model of the atom.
Discovery of the Atom
The atom was first conceived of by the Greek philosopher Democritus in approximately 400 BCE. The concept was lost during the Dark Ages of Europe until 1803, when the British scientist John Dalton speculated that everything was composed of very tiny indivisible particles called atoms.
Dalton’s simple model of an atom persisted until 1897, when another British physicist, J.J. Thomson, discovered that atoms contained tiny negatively charged particles called electrons. From 1897 to 1909, scientists thought that atoms were composed of electrons spread uniformly throughout a positively charged matrix. J.J. Thomson’s model was known as the plum pudding model.
Dalton’s model of the atom depicted a tiny, solid, indivisible sphere. Thomson’s plum pudding model shows electrons (the green circles) distributed in a positively charged matrix.
Development of the Rutherford Model
In 1909, Rutherford conducted his famous gold foil experiment. In the experiment, Rutherford and his colleague Hans Geiger bombarded a piece of gold foil with positively charged alpha particles, expecting them to travel straight through the foil. Instead, many alpha particles ricocheted off of the foil, suggesting that there was something positive these particles were colliding with. They named this positive force the nucleus. The Rutherford Model was created based on this new data.
This diagram depicts the expected and the actual results of the gold foil experiment. The diagram on the left shows particles passing through the positively charged matrix of the plum pudding model. The diagram on the right shows particles ricocheting off of the nucleus in the center of the atom.
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