Who originally determined that electrons move around the nucleus of an atom?

1 Answer
Jun 7, 2017

The fact that electrons move around the nucleus was first suggested by Lord Rutherford from the results of the #alpha#-particle scattering experiment performed by Geiger and Marsden.

As a conclusion of the experiment it was suggested that all of the positive charge and most of the mass of the entire atom was concentrated in a very small region.
Lord Rutherford called it the nucleus of the atom.

In order to explain the atomic structure, he supposed that electrons moved around the nucleus in orbits much like the planets orbit around the sun.

He proposed such a model because if electrons were to be steady, they would collapse into the nucleus due to the electrostatic attraction of the nucleus. Thus they were to revolve around with the electrostaic force due to the nucleus to act as the necessary centripetal force.