Question

What did Rutherford's gold-foil experiment help him conclude?

A. The mass of the atom is equivalent to the number of protons alone.
B. The mass of the atom is negligible.
C. The mass of the atom is mostly located in a small nucleus.
D. The mass of the atom is equivalent to the number of neutrons alone.

Answer 1

C. mass is protons and neutrons. Both are in the nucleus

Answer 2

That experiment led not only him but scientists in general to conclude and to prove that the atom's nucleous is not solid, proving Thomson's Plum Pudding model wrong and contradicting that previous hypothesis since the beam of positively charged particles pierced and ran through the foil, thus the volume of the atom is mostly unoccupied, setting up the fundamentals of what until these days is the concept of an atom. The most suitable answer would be then C.

Step-by-step explanation: