What conclusion was drawn from Rutherford's Gold Foil Experiment?

Rutherford's Gold Foil Experiment concluded that the atom contains a dense, positively charged nucleus. This groundbreaking experiment involved firing alpha particles at a thin gold foil and observing their scattering patterns. Most of the alpha particles passed through the foil with little deflection, but a small fraction were deflected at large angles, indicating that they encountered something very dense and positively charged within the atom.

This led to the conclusion that the majority of an atom’s volume is empty space, but it also contains a small, central nucleus that is significantly denser than the surrounding area, which is where the positive charge resides. This finding was pivotal in reshaping the atomic model from the previously accepted plum pudding model, where the atom was thought to be a uniform distribution of positive charge with negative electrons embedded within it.

The other options do not accurately reflect the conclusions drawn from this experiment. The idea that atoms are uniformly solid was disproven by the observation of alpha particles passing through without any deflection. The incorrect notion that electrons reside at equal distances from the nucleus contradicts the understanding of quantum mechanics that describes electron orbitals and their probabilities. Lastly, the nucleus is positively charged, not negatively charged, which fundamentally defines the interactions of atoms in chemical processes.