If Rutherford made bombarded aluminum foil with alpha particles instead of gold foil what observations would he have used?

Answer 1

The scattering angles would have changed, but the qualitative results would also change: the reason Rutherford chose gold was because it is EXTREMELY malleable. One can stretch gold foil until it is only a few atoms thick in places, which is not possible with aluminum. If the foil were too thick, there would be no transmission of particles at all; the whole point was to demonstrate that most alpha particles passed through unchanged, but some of them scattered, which is only possible with a VERY thin foil.

Answer 2

What Rutherford would have done was figure out the particles in the aluminum foil then take the alpha particles and mix them together. I think he would observe the protons, neutrons and electrons and observe the difference between the aluminum foil and gold foils movement of the particles.

Answer 3

The angles formed in this experiment will have different angles than using gold foil as the atomic number is less in aluminium than the gold.As aluminium foil is more thick than of gold most of the rays wont completely pass through the foil.

Answer 4

Alpha particles were rejected or scattered by the atom; Rutherford and co-workers assumed that something positive in atom reject alpha particles and concluded that the atom has a positive nucleus.

Answer 5

It would have been just different