describe Thomson's atomic model
Answers
ANSWER
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
See Article History
Alternative Titles: “plum pudding” atomic model, Thomson atomic model
Thomson atomic model, earliest theoretical description of the inner structure of atoms, proposed about 1900 by William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) and strongly supported by Sir Joseph John Thomson, who had discovered (1897) the electron, a negatively charged part of every atom. Though several alternative models were advanced in the 1900s by Kelvin and others, Thomson held that atoms are uniform spheres of positively charged matter in which electrons are embedded. Popularly known as the plum pudding model, it had to be abandoned (1911) on both theoretical and experimental grounds in favour of the Rutherford atomic model, in which the electrons describe orbits about a tiny positive nucleus.
Answer:
In Thomson's model, the atom is composed of electrons surrounded by a soup of positive charge to balance the electrons' negative charges, like negatively charged “plums” surrounded by positively charged “pudding”. The 1904 Thomson model was disproved by Hans Geiger's and Ernest Marsden's 1909 gold foil experiment.
