RUTHERFORD SCATTERING ANIMATION

The object of this PowerPoint is to show how the moving alpha particles are deflected according to how close they come to the gold nucleus. This visualization should help it be remembered by students.
Since it is impossible to represent an atom and its nucleus to scale on a diagram, I have kept putting in reminders of this.
The first slide explains that the diagram of alpha particle, gold atom and gold nucleus are very much not to scale and the nucleus is about 1/100 000th of the size of the atom.
It then shows the deflections of moving alpha particles when they bombard a gold atom.
The next slide enables the user to choose, one by one, which alpha particle they want to watch and it leaves a trail behind to show its exact path.
For simplicity the gold foil is then represented by a diagram of gold foil only two atoms thick and there is a second reminder that the nuclei are extremely far apart and so the diagram is not to scale.
The next slide separately shows most alphas moving straight through the foil and then the decreasing proportion of alphas that are deflected through small angles, large angles, very large angles and one alpha that bounces back.
The next slide repeats this but now shows the tracks.
The last slide explains how the results of the experiment lead to Rutherford’s conclusion that the atom is mostly empty space and must have a tiny, dense, positively charged nucleus.