Home▸Physics & Mechanics▸Rutherford's Gold Foil Experiment: How Alpha Particles Discovered the Atomic Nucleus

⚛️ Rutherford's Gold Foil Experiment: How Alpha Particles Discovered the Atomic Nucleus

Explore Ernest Rutherford's 1909-1911 gold foil experiment, where firing alpha particles at thin gold foil overturned the plum pudding model and revealed the atomic nucleus.

Physics & Mechanics3DModerate60 FPS

This simulation demonstrates how alpha particles scatter when fired at a gold foil, showing why most pass straight through while a rare few rebound sharply off a concentrated nucleus.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

This simulation demonstrates how alpha particles scatter when fired at a gold foil, showing why most pass straight through while a rare few rebound sharply off a concentrated nucleus.

🎮 How to Use

Fire alpha particles at the foil and adjust settings like nucleus size or particle speed to see how the scattering pattern changes, then compare the results to what the plum pudding model would have predicted.

💡 Did You Know?

Geiger and Marsden had to sit in a darkened room and count individual flashes of light on the detection screen by eye for months, since automated particle detectors did not yet exist.

⚙ Under the hood

Explore Ernest Rutherford's 1909-1911 gold foil experiment, where firing alpha particles at thin gold foil overturned the plum pudding model and revealed the atomic nucleus.

physicsatomic-structurerutherfordgold-foil-experimentnuclear-modelalpha-particleschemistry-historyscience-experiments

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install