Question

why was gold foil chosen by rutherford instead of any other metal

Answer 1

Rutherford had chosen the golden foil because it is the element which can malleable as possible (which is 100 atoms thick). snd he did not use any other metal because it cannot be made as malleable as possible as gold

Answer 2

Rutherford chose a gold foil for his α-particle scattering experiment because he wanted as thin a layer as possible.The gold foil was about 1000 atoms thick and a thickness of about 6×10⁻⁵ cm.So,a considerable amount of energy was produced by α particles from the gold foil.α-particles are doubly-charged helium ions having mass unit of 4u.