10.2 Discovery of the parts of the atom: electrons and nuclei  (Page 5/7)

The small size of the nucleus also implies that the atom is mostly empty inside. In fact, in Rutherford’s experiment, most alphas went straight through the gold foil with very little scattering, since electrons have such small masses and since the atom was mostly empty with nothing for the alpha to hit. There were already hints of this at the time Rutherford performed his experiments, since energetic electrons had been observed to penetrate thin foils more easily than expected. [link] shows a schematic of the atoms in a thin foil with circles representing the size of the atoms (about ${\text{10}}^{-\text{10}}\text{m}$ ) and dots representing the nuclei. (The dots are not to scale—if they were, you would need a microscope to see them.) Most alpha particles miss the small nuclei and are only slightly scattered by electrons. Occasionally, (about once in 8000 times in Rutherford’s experiment), an alpha hits a nucleus head-on and is scattered straight backward.

Based on the size and mass of the nucleus revealed by his experiment, as well as the mass of electrons, Rutherford proposed the planetary model of the atom    . The planetary model of the atom pictures low-mass electrons orbiting a large-mass nucleus. The sizes of the electron orbits are large compared with the size of the nucleus, with mostly vacuum inside the atom. This picture is analogous to how low-mass planets in our solar system orbit the large-mass Sun at distances large compared with the size of the sun. In the atom, the attractive Coulomb force is analogous to gravitation in the planetary system. (See [link] .) Note that a model or mental picture is needed to explain experimental results, since the atom is too small to be directly observed with visible light.

Rutherford’s planetary model of the atom was crucial to understanding the characteristics of atoms, and their interactions and energies, as we shall see in the next few sections. Also, it was an indication of how different nature is from the familiar classical world on the small, quantum mechanical scale. The discovery of a substructure to all matter in the form of atoms and molecules was now being taken a step further to reveal a substructure of atoms that was simpler than the 92 elements then known. We have continued to search for deeper substructures, such as those inside the nucleus, with some success. In later chapters, we will follow this quest in the discussion of quarks and other elementary particles, and we will look at the direction the search seems now to be heading.

Section summary

• Atoms are composed of negatively charged electrons, first proved to exist in cathode-ray-tube experiments, and a positively charged nucleus.
• The positive charge in the nucleus is carried by particles called protons.
• Mass of electron,
  $m_e=9\text{.}\text{11}\times {\text{10}}^{-\text{31}}\text{kg}\text{.}$
• Mass of proton,
  $m_p=1\text{.}\text{67}\times {\text{10}}^{-\text{27}}\text{kg.}$
• The planetary model of the atom pictures electrons orbiting the nucleus in the same way that planets orbit the sun.

Problem exercises