The discovery of the electron for the umpteenth time posed the question to scientists all over the world: what is the internal structure of the atom? Naturally, it is impossible to see even with the most powerful microscope how everything is arranged there. Therefore, different scientists offered their own versions of the internal structure of the atom.
Thus, J. Thompson proposed a model according to which the atom entirely consisted of a positively charged substance, inside which negatively charged electrons were constantly moving. In parallel with Thompson, F. Lenard at the beginning of the 20th century suggested that there is a void inside the atom, along which neutral particles move, consisting of the same number of electrons and some positively charged elements. In Lenard's work, these particles were called dynamides.
However, Rutherford's so-called planetary model of the atom turned out to be the most detailed. A series of experiments on uranium made this scientist truly famous.as a result of which such a phenomenon as radioactivity was formulated and theoretically explained.
Early thinking about the fact that it is the planetary model of the atom that is the true expression of the structure of this element, in his first major scientific research, Rutherford came to the conclusion that the energy hidden inside the atom is several tens of thousands of times greater than molecular energy. From this conclusion, he proceeded to explain some cosmic phenomena, stating, in particular, that solar energy is nothing but the result of constant reactions, including the splitting of the atom.
The most important step towards understanding the structure of the atom was the famous experiments on the movement of alpha particles through gold foil: the vast majority of these particles passed through it without any changes, but individual elements sharply deviated from their route. Rutherford suggested that in this case, these particles pass next to like-charged elements, whose dimensions are much smaller than the size of an atom. This is how the famous planetary model of the structure of the atom was born. It was a great achievement for the scientist.
The planetary model of the atom was proposed at the very beginning of the twentieth century by J. Stoney, but he had it exclusively theoretical in nature, while Rutherford came to it through experiments, the results of which were published in 1911 in the Philosophical magazine.”
Continuing his experiments, Rutherford came to the conclusion that the quantityalpha particles fully corresponds to the ordinal number of the element in the recently published periodic table of Mendeleev. In parallel with this, the Danish scientist Niels Bohr, creating his theory of metals, made an important discovery regarding the orbits of electrons, which became one of the most important evidence that it was the planetary model of the atom that was closest to the actual structure of this elementary particle. The opinions of scientists coincided.
Thus, the planetary model of the atom is a theoretical justification for the structure of this elementary particle, according to which in the center of the atom there is a nucleus with protons, the charge of which has a positive value, and electrically neutral neutrons, and around the nucleus, at a considerable distance from it, negatively charged electrons move in orbits.
