The Thomson atomic model (aka the plum pudding model) was created shortly after electrons were discovered (this was the experimental evidence). Thomson held that atoms are uniform spheres of positively charged matter in which electrons are embedded. But, the Rutherford atomic model soon replaced it based on a new discovery. The model described the atom as a tiny, dense, positively-charged core called a nucleus, in which nearly all the mass is concentrated, around which the light, negative constituents, called electrons, circulate at some distance, much like planets revolving around the Sun. The nucleus was postulated as small and dense to account for the scattering of alpha particles from thin, gold foil, as observed in a series of experiments in 1909. In the experiments, a radioactive source capable of emitting alpha particles (i.e., positively charged particles, identical to the nucleus of the helium atom and 7,000 times more massive than electrons) was enclosed within a protective lead shield. The radiation was focused into a narrow beam after passing through a slit in a lead screen. A thin section of gold foil was placed in front of the slit, and a screen coated with zinc sulfide to render it fluorescent served as a counter to detect alpha particles. As each alpha particle struck the fluorescent screen, it would produce a burst of light called a scintillation, which was visible through a viewing microscope attached to the back of the screen. The screen itself was movable, allowing Rutherford and his associates to determine whether or not any alpha particles were being deflected by the gold foil. Most alpha particles were observed to pass straight through the gold foil, which implied that atoms are composed of large amounts of open space. Some alpha particles were deflected slightly, suggesting interactions with other positively charged particles within the atom. Still other alpha particles were scattered at large angles, while a very few even bounced back toward the source. (Rutherford famously said later, “It was almost as incredible as if you fired a 15-inch shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you.”) Only a positively charged and relatively heavy target particle, such as the proposed nucleus, could account for such strong repulsion. The negative electrons that balanced electrically the positive nuclear charge were regarded as traveling in circular orbits about the nucleus. Finally, the Bohr model of the atom, a radical departure from earlier, classical descriptions, was the first that incorporated quantum theory and was the predecessor of wholly quantum-mechanical models. The Bohr model and all of its successors describe the properties of atomic electrons in terms of a set of allowed (possible) values. Atoms absorb or emit radiation only when the electrons abruptly jump between allowed, or stationary, states. Direct experimental evidence for the existence of such discrete states was obtained (1914) by the German-born physicists James Franck and Gustav Hertz. Bohr's changes brought the model in line with the regular patterns (spectral series) of light emitted by real hydrogen atoms. By limiting the orbiting electrons to a series of circular orbits having discrete radii, Bohr could account for the series of discrete wavelengths in the emission spectrum of hydrogen. Light, he proposed, radiated from hydrogen atoms only when an electron made a transition from an outer orbit to one closer to the nucleus. The energy lost by the electron in the abrupt transition is precisely the same as the energy of the quantum of emitted light.
