Rutherford’s experiment

Rutherford’s experiment involved firing a beam of alpha particles (positively charged particles) at a thin gold foil. Most particles passed through easily, but some deflected at large angles, and a few bounced back. This revealed that atoms are mostly empty space, with a tiny, dense, positively charged nucleus at the center. The experiment fundamentally changed our understanding by showing that atoms have a small, concentrated core, rather than being a uniform distribution of positive and negative charge.