Question

What do you think would be the observation if the alpha particle scattering experiment is carried out using a foil of metal other than gold?

Answer 1

Hint: The foil to be used in the alpha scattering experiment should be very thin. Gold is very malleable metal so due to this property it can be easily turned into a thin foil. If any other metal foil is used instead of gold then also there will be no change in the observations if the metal foil to be used is as thin as gold foil.

Complete step by step answer:
Alpha particle scattering experiment was carried out by Rutherford in 1911 which is also known as Gold foil experiment. This experiment was used to depict the structure of atoms. The reason for using gold foil was that very thin foil for the experiment was required, since gold is malleable from all other metals so it can be easily shaped into very thin sheets. So, Rutherford used gold foils. But if some other metal foils are used instead of gold they will have no effect on the described result until they are as thin as gold foils. But other metals are not as malleable as gold so it is difficult to turn those metals into such thin sheets. If thick foil is used then it will result in the change of scattering angles thereby affecting the predictions of the experiment.

Note:
In the 20th century, Rutherford established that atoms consisted of a diffuse cloud of negatively charged electrons surrounding a small, dense, positively charged nucleus. He considered a planetary model of the atom. But the electrons release electromagnetic radiation while orbiting a nucleus and they would lose energy and collapse into the nucleus on a timescale of around 16 picoseconds. So, the model predicted that all the atoms are unstable which the major drawback of this experiment was.