Chosen because gold is incredibly malleable and can be beaten into a sheet only about 1,000 atoms thick.
While most did pass through, Rutherford was shocked to find that: Rutherford Gold Foil Experiment - Backstage Science
In 1911, Ernest Rutherford and his team (Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden) conducted the "Gold Foil" experiment, which Backstage Science describes as essentially the . Chosen because gold is incredibly malleable and can
A detector that would flash when hit by an alpha particle. The Unexpected Result Rutherford Gold Foil Experiment - Backstage Science
To look inside the atom, Rutherford needed to fire something at it. He used:
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Positively charged particles emitted from a radioactive source (radium).