What are the Advantages of the Plum Pudding Model?
Most recent answer: 03/30/2017
- tan (age 14)
sydney
The only advantage is that it is a very simple visual model of an atom proposed by J. J. Thompson in the early 1900's. His model of the atom consisted of a large cloud of positive matter with imbedded negative particles making the overall mass neutral. The main disadvantage is that it is wrong. Thompson's student Ernest Rutherford showed that the positive matter inside the atom was not spread out but was concentrated at the very center of the atom. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_pudding_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_pudding_model for more information.
LeeH
(published on 03/30/2017)
Follow-Up #1: Problems with the Thomson model
- atul rajput (age 15)
mp
In the Thomson model of the atom (1904), the negatively charged electrons move within a "soup" or "cloud" of positive charge. One significant theoretical problem is that the positive cloud is not stable unless other, nonelectric, forces hold it together.
The main problem with Thomson's model is experimental: The Geiger-Marsden experiment (1909) showed that the positive charge is not spread out, but is concentrated in a very small "nucleus". Of course, this nucleus also requires nonelectromagnetic forces to hold it together, but that wasn't an issue until 1932, when the neutron was discovered.
(published on 01/27/2018)