In gold foil experiment incident radiation on gold nuclei were scattered by:

Explanation

The incident radiation on gold nuclei in the gold foil experiment were scattered by the nucleus. The gold foil experiment was conducted by Ernest Rutherford and his students Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden in 1911. They aimed a beam of alpha particles (helium nuclei) at a thin sheet of gold foil. Most of the alpha particles passed through the foil with little or no deflection. However, a small number of alpha particles were scattered at large angles, some even backscattered. This unexpected result could not be explained by the prevailing model of the atom, which proposed that the atom was a sphere of positive charge with electrons embedded in it. Rutherford realized that the only way to explain the results of the experiment was if the atom had a small, dense nucleus with a positive charge. The alpha particles that were scattered at large angles were those that had collided with the nucleus. The gold foil experiment was a major breakthrough in our understanding of the atom. It showed that the atom is not a uniform sphere of positive charge, but rather has a small, dense nucleus. This discovery led to the development of the modern model of the atom, which is still used today.