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I am having some concerns about Rutherford's gold foil experiment.. I got some answers but not really digest them..

First, before he conducted the experiment, it was to prove the plum pudding model. He expected the alpha particles would pass though the foil, as they have very high momentum relative to the foil. The first question is: How would this experiment prove the plum pudding model?!!!!!

2nd, about the conlusion: how he knew that the nucleus is in the center?!! why in center?!! and how he knew that all positive particles are stick together?! sure he could approximately calculate the space size and the non-space size (nucleus), but how knew that the "non-space" are assembled in one place?!

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  • $\begingroup$ Welcome to physics.SE! Thanks for asking this question, which prompted me to dig around and understand some of the historical aspects of this experiment that I hadn't thought about before. By the way, we don't normally put salutations in questions on SE, so I took the liberty of editing your answer to delete that material. $\endgroup$
    – user4552
    Commented May 5, 2018 at 14:41

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How would this experiment prove the plum pudding model?!!!!!

One observation can disprove a theory, by contradicting one of its predictions, but a single observation can't prove a theory in general. Rutherford et al. were not doing the experiment in order to see if they could support or disprove the plum pudding model. They were assuming that the plum pudding model was right, and they expected the results to be boring and interpretable within that model. They were very surprised when they actually got backscattering.

how he knew that all positive particles are stick together?!

Both the Kelvin-Thomson plum pudding model and the planetary model of the atom (Nagaoka, 1904) were already in existence by the time the Rutherford experiment was done. In both models, the positive charge of an atom consisted of a single unit. When you say "all positive particles," you're using your modern knowledge that the nucleus consists of protons that each have charge $+e$. I can think of at least two reasons why physicists in 1910 would think that the positively charged part of an atom was an indivisible unit.

(1) If it could be broken apart, then you would have atomic transmutation, which was at best a controversial idea and not something that was believed to occur commonly. (Soddy and Rutherford had discovered in 1901 that when thorium emitted an alpha, it turned into radium. But this was considered so subversive that Rutherford responded initially to Soddy with, "For Christ's sake, Soddy, don't call it transmutation. They'll have our heads off as alchemists.")

(2) The alpha particle was known to be the positively charged part of a helium atom, and in experiments alpha particles seemed to behave as single units.

why in center?

Given that the positive charge is an indivisible unit and very small, we have the planetary model, in which the atom is like a little solar system. The nucleus is much heavier than the electrons, so it would stay near the center due to conservation of momentum, just as the sun does.

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You could read the excellent wikipedia page on the Geiger-Marsden experiment at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geiger–Marsden_experiment .

Physicists knew that gold consists of atoms. The model at the time was the plumpudding model, which predicted that the alpha particles would deflect only very little upon passing through the foil. In the experiment the behaviour was quite different and could be explained by a model with most of the mass and all of the positive charge concentrated in one position. That position would then of course also be the center of the atom.

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  • $\begingroup$ He concluded that since most of the particles passed, then most of the atom is empty. On the other hand, he was expecting the all to pass through a non-empty atom! $\endgroup$ Commented May 5, 2018 at 9:56
  • $\begingroup$ He concluded that the alpha particles were scattered by massive point charges of at least 100e. So outside these point there could be no mass, except electrons that are 2000 times lighter than protons, and no positive charge. $\endgroup$
    – my2cts
    Commented May 5, 2018 at 12:34
  • $\begingroup$ This answer just summarizes the Rutherford experiment, without answering the OP's three specific questions. $\endgroup$
    – user4552
    Commented May 5, 2018 at 14:39
  • $\begingroup$ I explained that Rutherford used a model. That model is described on the wikipedia page that I referred to. I mentioned the central conclusion of that model. Your comment is unfounded. $\endgroup$
    – my2cts
    Commented May 5, 2018 at 14:44

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