AT M

N.C.APARAJITHA
THE TINY SPECK
Can you believe that a
movie made of atoms ? 
 ATOM
Atoms are the basic units of matter and
the defining structure of elements atoms
are made up of three particles: protons,
neutrons and electrons — which are
composed of even smaller particles, such
as quarks.
THOMSON
ATOMIC THEORY:
POSTULATES OF THOMSON’S ATOMIC MODEL:
Postulate 1: An atom consists of a positively charged sphere with electrons
embedded in it
Postulate 2: An atom as a whole is electrically neutral because the negative and
positive charges are equal in magnitude.
Thomson atomic model is compared to watermelon. Where he considered:
•Watermelon seeds as negatively charged particles.
•The red part of the watermelon as positively charged.
LIMITATION OF THOMSON’S ATOMIC MODEL:

Thomson’s atom model could successfully explain the electrical

neutrality of atom. However, it failed to explain the following.
1. Thomson’s model failed to explain how the positively charged sphere
is shielded from the negatively charged electrons without getting
neutralised.
2. This theory explains only about the protons and electrons and failed
to explain the presence of neutral particle neutron.
RUTHERFORD NUCLEAR MODEL OF ATOM:

Ernest Marsden
Hans Geiger
Ernest Rutherford
A.
OBSERVATIONS OF RUTHERFORD ATOMIC MODEL:

The observations made by Rutherford led him to conclude that:

•Most of the rays just went through the gold foil making scintillations (bright
spots) in the ZnS screen.
•A few rays got reflected after hitting the gold foil.
•One in 1000 rays got reflected by an angle of 180° (retraced path) after
hitting the gold foil.
OBSERVATIONS:
1.A major fraction of the α-particles bombarded towards the gold sheet passed
through it without any deflection, and hence most of the space in an atom is
empty.
2.Some of the α-particles were deflected by the gold sheet by very small angles,
and hence the positive charge in an atom is not uniformly distributed. The
positive charge in an atom is concentrated in a very small volume.
3.Very few of the α-particles were deflected back, that is only a few α-particles
had nearly 180o angle of deflection. So the volume occupied by the positively
charged particles in an atom is very small as compared to the total volume of
an atom.
HYPOTHESIS OF RUTHERFORD ATOMIC MODEL:

• According to Rutherford, an atom consists of subatomic particles namely,

proton, electron and neutrons.
• Protons and neutrons are found at the centre of an atom, called nucleus.
• Rutherford model proposed that the negatively charged electrons surround the
nucleus of an atom. He also claimed that the electrons surrounding the nucleus
revolve around it with very high speed in circular paths. He named these
circular paths as orbits.
• Electrons and the nucleus are held together by electrostatic forces.
DRAWBACKS OF RUTHERFORD ATOMIC MODEL:
• Rutherford model was not in accordance with Maxwell’s theory and
could not explain the stability of an atom.
•One of the drawbacks of the Rutherford model was also that he did not
say anything about the arrangement of electrons in an atom which
made his theory incomplete.