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Ch.2 - Atoms, Molecules & Ions

Chapter 2, Problem 91

What discovery about atomic structure was made from the results of Rutherford's gold foil experiment?

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welcome back everyone. Which of the following is a conclusion made about the structure of an atom based on Rutherford's gold foil experiment. So if we imagine our piece of gold foil from Rutherford's experiment, we recall that Rutherford aimed an alpha particle source where he shot alpha particles towards this gold foil, where a majority of these alpha particles ended up passing through our atoms of gold. Where some of these alpha particles actually ended up being deflected in the opposite direction of the gold foil. So even though a majority of these alpha particles went through, a few were still deflected. Which signaled to Rutherford that are positively charged alpha particles passed through our atoms of gold so easily because our atoms of gold consisted of positively charged nuclei, which we recall are surrounded by are negatively charged electrons on the outside of the nucleus. And so that's why some of these alpha particles were deflected by a few amount. So looking at our statements, we see that choice A. States that the atom is composed of a small but dense. So we can agree with small and dense negatively charged region known as the nucleus. We will disagree with this statement because it should say that the nucleus is positively charged, meaning that we would rule out choice A But reading choice be, it does say that we have a small but dense, positively charged region. So Choice B looks like a good prospect for an answer choice. Looking at choice. See it says that the atom is composed of a small but dense neutral region known as the nucleus. We would disagree with the statement. So we would also rule out statements. See because we would disagree with the fact that it states that the nucleus is neutral. We know that it's positively charged. So we would disagree with this statement. And lastly we have choice D, which states that the atom is mostly composed of a dense negatively charged region known as the nucleus. And we also would disagree with negatively charged yet again because we know our nucleus is positively charged. So that means that the only correct choice to complete this example is statement be stating that the atom is mostly composed of a dense, positively charged region known as our nucleus. Based on what Rutherford was able to discover in his experiment. I hope everything I went through is clear. If you have any questions, leave them down below and I'll see everyone in the next practice video.
Related Practice
Textbook Question

Label the following statements about J. J. Thomson's cathode-ray tube experiments shown in Figure 2.6 as true or false. (c) The cathode ray is deflected away from a positively charged plate.

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Textbook Question

Label the following statements about J. J. Thomson's cathode-ray tube experiments shown in Figure 2.6 as true or false. (f) By measuring the deflection of the cathode ray beam caused by electric fields of known strength, the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron was calculated.

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Textbook Question
Which of the following charges is not possible for the over-all charge on an oil droplet in Millikan's experiment? For this problem, we'll round the currently accepted charge of an electron to 1.602 * 10-19 C. (a) -1.010 * 10-18 C (b) -8.010 * 10-19 C (c) -2.403 * 10-18 C
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Textbook Question
Prior to Rutherford's gold foil experi-ment, the 'plum pudding' model of the atom represented atomic structure. In this model, the atom is composed of elec-trons interspersed within a positive cloud of charge. If this were the correct model of the atom, predict how the results of Rutherford's experiment would have been different. (a) The alpha particles would pass right through the gold foil with little to no deflection. (b) Most of the alpha particles would be deflected back toward the source. (c) Most of the alpha particles would be absorbed by the atom and neither pass through nor be deflected from the gold foil.
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Textbook Question

A period at the end of sentence written with a graphite pencil has a diameter of 1 mm. If the period represented the nucleus, approximately how large is the diameter of the entire atom in units of m?

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Textbook Question

A period at the end of sentence written with a graphite pen-cil has a diameter of 1 mm. How many carbon atoms would it take to line up across the period if a single carbon atom has a diameter of 150 pm?

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