Question

Which of the following was not a conclusion of Rutherford’s gold foil experiment?
A.The atom is mainly empty space
B.The nucleus has a negative charge
C.The atom has a dense nucleus
D.Alpha particles can pass through a thin sheet of gold foil
E.All of the statements are correct regarding the gold foil experiment

Answer 1

In 1909, an experiment was conducted that helped in proving the existence of a heavy positively charged entity in an atom, known as the nucleus. This experiment was conducted by a scientist named Rutherford.

Complete step by step answer:
In this experiment, $\alpha$ particles were used to bombard a gold foil to obtain the result of such a collision. The $\alpha$ particles in this case were formed by a radioactive decay process.
A beam of $\alpha$ particles is made to be incident on a gold foil. The scientist expected to notice deflections in the $\alpha$ particle beam and hence set an apparatus for measuring the degree of deflections that occurred. This detection apparatus consisted of a photosensitive screen placed in a circular fashion around the gold foil.
Some major observations were obtained after performing this experiment:
Contrary to the expected result, most of the $\alpha$ particles passed right through the foil without any deflections.
1.A few of the $\alpha$ particles were deflected at a small angular range in accordance with the incident beam.
2.An even smaller number of $\alpha$ particles were deflected at larger angles.
3.Hence, the conclusion which was not a part of Rutherford’s gold foil experiment is the atom has a negative charge

Hence, Option B is the correct option.

Note:
In many ways, the Rutherford model of the atom is the classic model of the atom, even though it's no longer considered an accurate representation. Rutherford's model shows that an atom is mostly empty space, with electrons orbiting a fixed, positively charged nucleus in set, predictable paths.