Physics: “The Rutherford Atom” 1961 PSSC; Robert Hulsizer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Published on September 28, 2017

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“Dr. Robert I. Hulsizer uses a cloud chamber and gold foil to carry out the historic Rutherford experiment which led to the nuclear model of the atom. He clarifies the behavior of alpha particles by use of large scale models illustrating the nuclear atom and Coulomb scattering.”

Public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

Wikipedia license:

The Rutherford model is a model of the atom devised by Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford directed the famous Geiger–Marsden experiment in 1909 which suggested, upon Rutherford’s 1911 analysis, that J. J. Thomson’s plum pudding model of the atom was incorrect. Rutherford’s new model for the atom, based on the experimental results, contained the new features of a relatively high central charge concentrated into a very small volume in comparison to the rest of the atom and with this central volume also containing the bulk of the atomic mass of the atom. This region would be known as the “nucleus” of the atom…

Experimental basis for the model

Rutherford overturned Thomson’s model in 1911 with his well-known gold foil experiment in which he demonstrated that the atom has a tiny, heavy nucleus. Rutherford designed an experiment to use the alpha particles emitted by a radioactive element as probes to the unseen world of atomic structure. If Thomson was correct, the beam would go straight through the gold foil. Most of the beams went through the foil, but a few were deflected.

Rutherford presented his own physical model for subatomic structure, as an interpretation for the unexpected experimental results. In it, the atom is made up of a central charge (this is the modern atomic nucleus, though Rutherford did not use the term “nucleus” in his paper) surrounded by a cloud of (presumably) orbiting electrons…

The Physical Science Study Committee, usually abbreviated as PSSC, was inaugurated at a 1956 conference at MIT to review introductory physics education and to design, implement, and monitor improvements. It produced major new physics textbooks, instructional movies, and classroom laboratory materials, which were used by high schools around the world during the 1960s and 1970s and beyond…

By the 1964–1965 school year, about half the US students enrolled in high school physics (200,000 students, 5000 teachers) were reportedly using the PSSC course materials…

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