An information design breif to showcase a New Zealand invention or discovery.

 

In 1911 Ernest Rutherford theorized that an atom must have a positive charge concentrated in a central mass, called a nucleus. To prove his theory Rutherford conducted a gold foil experiment, in which alpha particles are fired at a piece of gold foil. In the previously held ‘Thomson’ model of the atom, the alpha
particles would be expected to pass straight through the gold foil atoms. However Rutherford observed that some of the alpha particles were not passing through the gold foil, instead they were deflected by the nucleus of the gold atoms.