Limitations of Rutherford Atomic Model

The Rutherford atomic model is failed to explain certain things.

• According to Maxwell, an electron revolving around the nucleus should emit electromagnetic radiation due to accelerated charged particles emit electromagnetic radiation. but Rutherford model says that the electrons revolve around the nucleus in fixed paths called orbits. The radiation would carry energy from the motion which led to the shrinking of orbit. Ultimately electrons would collapse inside the nucleus.

• As per the Rutherford model, calculations have shown that an electron would collapse in the nucleus in less than 10^-8 seconds. So Rutherford model has created a high contradiction with Maxwell’s theory and Rutherford later could not explain the stability of an atom.

• Rutherford also did not describe the arrangement of electrons in the orbit as one of the other drawbacks of his model.

Regardless of seeing the early atomic models were inaccurate and failed to explain certain experimental results, they were the base for future developments in the world of quantum mechanics.

Rutherford’s Alpha Scattering Experiment is the fundamental experiment done by Earnest Rutherford’s Alpha Scattering Experiment that gives the fundamental about the structure of the atom. Rutherford in his experiment directed high-energy streams of α-particles from a radioactive source at a thin sheet (100 nm thickness) of gold. Then the deflection of these alpha particles tells us about the structure of atoms.

In this article, we will study about constituents of atoms, Rutherford’s  Alpha Scattering Experiment,