Rutherford's alpha-particle ($\alpha$) scattering experiment was respo

Rutherford’s alpha-particle ($\alpha$) scattering experiment was responsible for the discovery of which one of the following ?

Electron

Proton

Atomic Nucleus

Neutron

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UPSC NDA-2 – 2021

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Rutherford’s alpha-particle scattering experiment, also known as the Gold Foil experiment, involved firing alpha particles at a thin sheet of gold foil. Most of the alpha particles passed straight through the foil, some were deflected at small angles, and a very small number were deflected at large angles or even bounced back. These observations led Rutherford to propose the existence of a small, dense, positively charged core at the center of the atom, which he called the nucleus. This experiment was a crucial step in understanding the structure of the atom, replacing Thomson’s plum pudding model.

The key finding was that the atom’s positive charge and most of its mass are concentrated in a tiny volume at the center, causing the rare but significant deflections of the positively charged alpha particles.

Electrons were discovered by J.J. Thomson using cathode ray tubes. Protons were later identified as the positively charged particles within the nucleus. Neutrons were discovered by James Chadwick in 1932, much later than Rutherford’s experiment (conducted in 1909-1911, model proposed in 1911).

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