Why do most alpha particles pass straight through the gold foil?
A motion in which the body does not have a fixed pattern or direction of movement is called random motion. Some examples are: - A ball kicked on the floor. - A butterfly’s movement around the flowers. - A fish movement in water. - A bird flying in the sky. - A kite up in the air. - A helium balloon swaying from side to side. - A paper plane flown in the air.
In Rutherford's gold foil experiment, the particles of which most passed straight through the gold foil were alpha particles, which are positively charged. The few alpha particles that were deflected back or to one side were being repelled by nuclei, which are also positively charged. Those that passes straight through did so because they didn't encounter any nuclei. The observation that most alpha particles passed straight through the gold foil led Rutherford to conclude that the the positive charge in an atom in concentrated in a very small area, the nucleus. Atoms are mostly empty space. Electrons, which are negatively charged, are distributed throughout this space but take up a very small part of it.
