Skip to main content

The Nuclear Model of the Atom

This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.

State

Rutherford's nuclear model places a small, dense, positively charged nucleus at an atom's center, surrounded by mostly empty space holding the electrons.

Show

Scaling a nucleus to the size of a blueberry would scale the whole atom to roughly the size of a football stadium.

Watch for

"Mostly empty" does not mean unstable; the nucleus's concentrated mass and charge govern how the atom behaves chemically.