Thomson’s Plum Pudding Model

Thomson s plum-pudding model of the atom. Thomson proposed that the atom might be made of thousands of tiny, negatively charged particles swarming within a cloud of positive charge, much like plums and raisins in an old-fashioned Christmas plum pudding. 

Thomson s "Plum Pudding" Model of Atomic Structure... 

Figure 2.2 The structure of the atom (a) J. J. Thomson s Plum Pudding model (b) N. Bohr s model...

Figure 4.9 J. J. Thomson s plum pudding model of the atom states that the atom is a uniform, positively charged sphere containing electrons. 

Rutherford described Thomson s plum pudding model as being tike old lumber fit only for a museum of scientific curiosities. Source unknown to present author. 

In Thomson s plum pudding model, the pudding is made of... 

Why is Rutherford s nuclear model of the atom more con-CQ sistent with the results of his a-particle scattering experiment than Thomson s "plum-pudding" model ... 

In 1911 Ernest Rutherford (Fig. 2.11), who performed many of the pioneering experiments to explore radioactivity, carried out an experiment to test Thomson s plum pudding model. The experiment involved directing a particles at a thin sheet of metal foil. 

A clear example of empirical science is the falsifying of Thomson s plum pudding model by Rutherford s gold foil experiment. One issue is that some so-called scientific theories are non-falsifiable, for example string theory. Science can be demarcated from pseudoscience less by what science is, and more by what scientists do. Science is a set of methods aimed at testing hypotheses and developing theories. If the theory is adopted by the scientific community, then the chances are it is science. 

Thomson s plum-pudding model had protons and electrons scattered throughout the atom. 

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