Rutherford Scattering
Author: Michael Fowler, UVa

The blue circle represents a heavy nucleus. A steady rain of alpha particles (red circles) comes from a source on the left. Atomic electrons would have negligible effect on the trajectories of the alpha particles. Only those alphas that get close to the nucleus are scattered through significant angles. (We neglect recoil of the nucleus.)












All materials © 2004 Mr. John Congleton. All Rights Reserved.