How Did Rutherford Confirm Alpha Particles Struck the Zinc Sulfide Screen?

[wavingerwin]

How did Rutherford know??

How did Rutherford know that the Zinc Sulfide screen was indeed hit by alpha particles?

The screen did fluoresce, but it could be because it was hit by electrons scattered from the gold foil, or maybe gold atoms... which would lead to conclusions different from the ones which were made (atom is mostly space bla bla...)

Thank you!

 

[alxm]

The screen did fluoresce, but it could be because it was hit by electrons scattered from the gold foil, or maybe gold atoms

Easy: Does the screen fluoresce without the gold foil?

Of course, Rutherford knew that already before he set up the experiment.

 

[charng]

Rutherford knew that the Zinc Sulfide screen was hit by alpha particles through a series of experiments known as the Gold Foil Experiment. In this experiment, Rutherford and his team bombarded a thin sheet of gold foil with alpha particles and observed the pattern of deflected particles on a screen coated with Zinc Sulfide. Rutherford expected that the alpha particles would pass straight through the gold foil with minimal deflection, as was predicted by the prevailing model of the atom at the time. However, he found that a small percentage of the alpha particles were deflected at large angles, and some even bounced back towards the source. This unexpected result led Rutherford to conclude that the atom was mostly empty space with a small, dense nucleus at its center. The fact that the Zinc Sulfide screen fluoresced when hit by these deflected particles provided further evidence that they were indeed alpha particles. This experiment revolutionized the understanding of the structure of the atom and solidified Rutherford's place as a pioneer in the field of nuclear physics.