Rutherford Model - Contribution To Modern Science

Contribution To Modern Science

After Rutherford's discovery, scientists started to realize that the atom is not ultimately a single particle, but is made up of far smaller subatomic particles. Subsequent research determined the exact atomic structure which led to Rutherford’s gold foil experiment. Scientists eventually discovered that atoms have a positively-charged nucleus (with an exact atomic number of charges) in the center, with a radius of about 1.2 x 10−15 meters x 1/3. Electrons were found to be even smaller.

Later, scientists found the expected number of electrons (the same as the atomic number) in an atom by using X-rays. When an X-ray passes through an atom some of it is scattered while the rest passes through the atom. Since the X-ray loses its intensity primarily due to scattering at electrons, by noting the rate of decrease in X-ray intensity, the number of electrons contained in an atom can be accurately estimated.

Read more about this topic:  Rutherford Model

Famous quotes containing the words contribution to, contribution, modern and/or science:

    All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives its final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.
    Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968)

    Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them—their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    This strange disease of modern life,
    With its sick hurry, its divided aims.
    Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)

    Until politics are a branch of science we shall do well to regard political and social reforms as experiments rather than short-cuts to the millennium.
    —J.B.S. (John Burdon Sanderson)