How did Rutherford explain the results of his gold foil experiment?

Answer 1

Rutherford made the following conclusions:

• Since most of the alpha particles passed straight through the gold foil without any deflection, most of the space within the atoms is empty.
• Since some of the alpha particles (which are big in size) were deflected by large angles or bounced backwards, they must have approached some positively charged region responsible for the deflection. This positively charged region is now called the nucleus.
• As very few alpha particles undergone the deflection, it was concluded that the volume occupied by the central region ( nucleus ) is very small.
• Since alpha particles which are relatively denser, were deflected by the central volume of charge, it shows that almost the complete mass of the atom must be within the central volume.