Question

In his famous experiment, Rutherford fired alpha particles at a thin gold film. Most of the alpha particles went through the firm and a very few bounced back. Suppose instead that about one-half the alpha particles bounced back and one-half went through. How would this have changed his conclusion about the structure of the atom?

1. The nucleus is about 1/2 the size of the atom.
2. The atom has no nucleus.
3. None of these
4. The nucleus covers the entire atom.
5. The atom is mostly empty space.

Answer 1

1. The nucleus is about 1/2 the size of the atom

Step-by-step explanation:

Alpha particles are positive charge particles and they are bounced back by the nucleus because nucleus is also same size

Now in present experiment Rutherford found that very few alpha particles are bounced back along same path which shows that very small region inside the nucleus is having positive charge and rest part of the atom is empty.

Now if we found that half of the alpha particles are bounced back then it shows that size of the nucleus is very large now as compare to previous one because only nucleus can bounce back the alpha particles

so correct answer will be

1. The nucleus is about 1/2 the size of the atom