Question

how rutherford hypothesis help us in finding the radius of an atom

Answer 1

it's complicated, read this http://library.thinkquest.org/19662/low/eng/exp-rutherford.html

Answer 2

i didn't get it

Answer 3

did you read it?

Answer 4

i did go through it

Answer 5

but i hve not get even a word of it in my head

Answer 6

okay do you know what the gold foil experiment is?

Answer 7

yessssss

Answer 8

kk...i hve found my anss...

Answer 9

okay so you know that his hypothesis was that the nucleus is occupies very little volume (few alpha particles deflected) and that it is positively charged, right?

the critical part in the link i posted is this:

"On the base of the number of alpha particles scattered by the G angle the Z number of elementary, positive charges in the nucleus can be calculated. He found that the number is equal to the atomic number. If we know the charge of the nucleus we can calculate the upper limit of its radius"

basically, using the angles of the scattered alpha particles, the charges of the nuclei were calculated and this was used to find how far apart they must, at least, be. (given the repulsion of positive charges)