Question

Question #da2e3

Answer 1

i think you r misunderstanding something here. the positive charge was discovered by then.. because they knew electric fields by that time..

Explanation:

i think this question came into your mind when speculating about the gold foil experiment i guess?
well im not 100% sure.. but according to my knowledge and the stuff i read to answer ur question, it is a matter of the exact times of those discoveries...

micheal faraday who was famous for stuff regarding electricity was there before rutherford.. so i guess u agree with me for saying that ppl at that time knew about electric fields and how to differ positive and negative charged particles.

http://www.chemteam.info/Radioactivity/Disc-Alpha&Beta-Particles.html

according to this article, before rutherford proved that alpha rays were actually particles, the idea was there about alphas being a fast moving positively charged ion of atomic mass, which made rutherford to look into the matter more thoroughly.

i suggest u read the "II. Alpha as a Particle Happens in 1903" of the above article