Explanation

Ernest Rutherford discovered the nucleus of an atom in 1911: Ernest Rutherford Known for: Discovering the nucleus of the atom, discovering alpha and beta rays, and proposing the laws of radioactive decay Experiment Shot alpha particles at a sheet of gold foil, and noticed that most went through, but some bounced Discovery: The atom consists mostly of empty space, with its mass concentrated in a central positively charged nucleus Rutherford’s discovery was based on the observation that most alpha particles passed straight through the gold foil, with very few particles suffering deflection. The term “nucleus” comes from the Latin word nucleus, which is a diminutive of nux (“nut”). In 1844, Michael Faraday used the term to refer to the “central point of an atom”.