Question

Which statement best summarizes the importance of Ernest Rutherford’s gold foil experiment?
It proved that all of John Dalton’s postulates were true.
It verified J. J. Thomson’s work on the atomic structure.
It showed that an electron circles a nucleus in a fixed-energy orbit.
It showed that a nucleus occupies a small part of the whole atom.

Answer 1

"It showed that a nucleus occupies a small part of the whole atom."

Rutherford’s gold foil experiment found that most alpha particles passed through the foil (atom mostly empty space) while a few were strongly deflected—implying a small, dense, positively charged nucleus at the atom’s center.