Gold Foil Experiment

Ernest Rutherford was born on August 30, 1871, Spring Grove around Nelson, New Zealand. He was the fourth child of the seven his mother had. As a child Ernest was hard working in the field since his family didn’t have enough money to provide for him. Ernest studied in a Government school and after he completed his schooling he won a scholarship to Nelson Collegiate School, where he was a well-liked boy and an ardent footballer.

He was awarded his second scholarship in 1889 to study at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand. Here he completed his graduation with a B.A. in 1892 and an M.A. in 1893 with first-class bi-honors in mathematics and physics. His interest in research made him stay another year at the college where he completed his B.Sc. The same year he won his third scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a research student at the Cavendish Laboratory under Professor J.J Thomson. Later he left for Canada when he was given the opportunity to take the chair of physics at McGill University in Montreal.

At the age of 10 is where science became an interest to his life. His first experiment was a mini cannon that exploded not long after. Yes his first experiment was a fail but that failure did not stop him from trying again, this shows that even as a little scientist Ernest did not give up

This great physicist died in Cambridge on October 19, 1937, following a short illness, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, leaving behind a great contribution to the scientific world.

Well before the experiment was conducted, people back then thought that an atom contained electrons (negatively charge) while the rest of the space was positive.

Ernest Rutherford and his team use the fluorescent screen to find out what was going to happen (the results), which was raped around the experiment. At the center of the experiment was the gold foil. Also a radiation source was introduced called alpha particles. Alpha particles