Give an activity to understand the implications of Rutherford’s scattering experiment by a gold foil.

To understand the implications of Rutherford’s a-particle scattering experiment:

Activity: Let a child stand in front of a wall with his eyes closed. Let him throw stones at the wall from a distance. He will hear sound for each strike of stone on the wall. This is like the nucleus of the atom. But if a blindfolded child has to throw stones at a barbed-wire fence, most of the stones would not hit the fencing and no sound would be heard.

Based on the above activity and similar reasoning Rutherford concluded the a-particle scattering experiment as:

(1) Most of the space inside the atom is empty as a-particles passed through the foil.

(2) Very few particles deflected from their path, this shows that positive charge occupies less space.

(3) A very small fraction of a-particles are deflected by 180°, this shows that all the positive charge and mass of the gold atom were concentrated in a very small volume within the atom.