Rutherford concluded from his evidence collected from the gold foil experiment that electrons were widely separated and there was a dense positively charged
the deflection of the particles.
nucleus
electron
atoms.
You have mentioned two important conclusions made by Rutherford from his gold foil experiment: the widely separated electrons and the presence of a dense positively charged nucleus. To understand how Rutherford arrived at these conclusions, let's break down the experiment and the evidence he collected.
In the gold foil experiment, Rutherford bombarded a thin sheet of gold foil with alpha particles, which are positively charged particles. He observed the pattern of their deflections as they passed through the foil.
Based on the prevailing theory at the time, known as the Thomson model, it was believed that the atom was a uniformly distributed positive charge with electrons embedded within it, similar to plums in a pudding (hence called the "plum pudding model").
However, what Rutherford found surprised him. Most alpha particles passed straight through the gold foil with little or no deflection, but a small number were deflected at large angles. In some cases, alpha particles even rebounded backward, which was completely unexpected.
To explain this observation, Rutherford proposed a new atomic model known as the nuclear model. According to this model, atoms contain a tiny, dense, and positively charged nucleus at the center, surrounded by mostly empty space. The electrons orbit around the nucleus at a relatively large distance.
Rutherford concluded that most of the alpha particles passed through the gold foil without deflection because they traveled through the empty space in the atom. However, the few alpha particles that were deflected or bounced back must have come close to the dense, positively charged nucleus and experienced repulsion due to their positive charges.
Therefore, the evidence from Rutherford's gold foil experiment led to the conclusion that electrons are widely separated from the nucleus, with most of the atom being empty space, and that there is a dense, positively charged nucleus at the center of the atom.
It's important to note that Rutherford's gold foil experiment provided a major revision to the understanding of atomic structure. Later advancements in atomic theory, such as the Bohr model and the wave-mechanical model, further refined our understanding of the electron's behavior and its relationship to the nucleus.