Rutherford model

3D animation of an atom incorporating the Rutherford model. The atomic nucleus shown expanded more than 10,000 times its size relative to the atom; electrons have no measurable diameter.

The Rutherford model was devised by Ernest Rutherford to describe an atom. Rutherford directed the Geiger–Marsden experiment in 1909, which suggested, upon Rutherford's 1911 analysis, that J. J. Thomson's plum pudding model of the atom was incorrect. Rutherford's new model^[1] for the atom, based on the experimental results, contained new features of a relatively high central charge concentrated into a very small volume in comparison to the rest of the atom and with this central volume containing most of the atom's mass; this region would be known as the atomic nucleus. The Rutherford model was subsequently superseded by the Bohr model.

^ Lakhtakia, A., ed. (1996). Models and modelers of hydrogen: Thales, Thomson, Rutherford, Bohr, Sommerfeld, Goudsmit, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Dirac, Sallhofer. Singapore ; River Edge, NJ: World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-02-2302-1.

[1] Lakhtakia, A., ed. (1996). Models and modelers of hydrogen: Thales, Thomson, Rutherford, Bohr, Sommerfeld, Goudsmit, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Dirac, Sallhofer. Singapore ; River Edge, NJ: World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-02-2302-1.

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