5.

01x Lecture Summary #2

DISCOVERY OF NUCLEUS - 1911 - E. RUTHERFORD

Rutherford interested in studying α particle emission from newly discovered
radioactive elements. α particles are He++

Detector swings around to front side - measure possible back scattered particles.

20 Particles/min backscattered!

PROBABILITY OF BACK-SCATTERING
= 20/132,000 = 2 × 10–4 !

Interpretation: Since most of the α particles go through the Au foil undeflected,

the Au atoms are mostly empty. Plum pudding model disproved!

2.1
• A very tiny percentage of α particles hit something massive in the atom and
backscatter (bounce back), indicating that most of the mass of the atom is
concentrated in a very small volume relative to the volume of the entire atom.
We now call this the NUCLEUS.
• Rutherford calculated the diameter of the nucleus to be 10-14 m. His
calculation (see below) related the probability of backscattering to the diameter of
the nucleus based on the size of the atom (10-10 m) and the thickness of the foil.
• Rutherford proposed the charge on the nucleus to be positive, since electrons
are negatively charged and atoms are neutral.
Charge on the nucleus = +Ze Z = atomic number
e = absolute value of electron’s charge
So Z electrons filled volume to a diameter of 10–10 m.

LET'S DO OUR OWN RUTHERFORD BACKSCATTERING EXPERIMENT!

White styrofoam balls = 1 monolayer of Au nuclei.

You = radioactive material emitting α particles

α particles = Ping pong balls = N = 60

# ping pong balls backscattered = B B

P ≡ prob. of backscattering = =
total # ping pong balls = N N

P is related to d, diameter of Au nucleus (i.e., styrofoam balls) in the following way:

where area of 1 nucleus =

Solve for d d = 5.08 P1/2 in where n = 110 and A = 2233 in2

2.2
CLASSICAL DESCRIPTION OF ATOM
How was e– bound to nucleus? What was force or attraction between them?
4 FUNDAMENTAL FORCES

Coulomb’s Force Law

–e ≡ charge on electron
+e ≡ charge on nucleus (for Z = 1)
r ≡ distance between 2 charges
εo ≡ permittivity of vacuum
8.854 × 10–12 C2 J–1 m–1
Attractive force due to Coulomb interaction
when r→∞ F(r) = 0 no force
as r→0 F(r) = ∞ infinite force
–
The closer e is to nucleus, the larger the force.

This equation tells you force as a function of r. It does not tell you how r changes
with time, t. But there is a CLASSICAL EQUATION OF MOTION that tells you
how e– and nucleus move under influence of this force. Newton's Second Law!!!

= Solve this differential equation to get r(t),

exactly…Deterministic…for all of time. But need a model to solve it.

Rutherford’s classical planetary model:

for uniform circular motion

2.3
Want to show e- is bound by showing that total energy is negative
Total Energy = Kinetic + Potential E=K+U

Solve for Kinetic energy

kinetic energy of e–

Potential energy is

Total energy is

<0 E is negative! System is bound!

Everything looks OK - stable orbit and bound - but here’s the rub…classical E & M
says any accelerating charge must emit energy as radiation — if radiating, E must
be decreasing

If E is decreasing, r is getting smaller. Can show that it takes 10–10 s for enough
energy to be lost for the e– to plummet into nucleus! Yikes! Lifetime of atom is 10–
10
s! Clearly contrary to observation! Either Coulomb force law is wrong or Newton’s
equation of motion, f = ma, is wrong. Turns out, the latter.

2.4