8) Alpha Partial Dispersion

MAIN PURPOSE:
* Ernest Rutherford was a New Zealand born scientist. In 1909, he did some experiment using gold fails and alpha particles. Alpha particles consist of two protons and neutrons bonded to each other, since they have no electrons, they are positively charged with two charge units. View the configuration of the experiment and understand the Rutherford experiment.
* There is a source of fast moving alpha particles that have a considerable amount of energy. The alpha particle streak is directed towards a very thin gold leaf.
* The alpha particle emitter or the source and the gold foil that was placed inside a detector are arranged in such a way that the detector would show a flash of light when an alpha when the particle hit it. The entire arrangement was maintained in a vacuum chamber.
* Think of the Thomson model of the atom when the alpha particles hit the paper Rutherford hoped that all would be diverted only a little by the positive charge distributed evenly across the gold atom. He did not expect to see the big deflection.