Question

a) What is the nucleus of an atom? And what is the nature of charge on it?
b) Name the scientist who discovered the nucleus of an atom.

Answer 1

Hint: There are many different types of atoms, all these atoms are made up of a few common and fundamental units called protons, electrons and neutrons. Two main scientists have contributed a lot to the knowledge about nuclei.

Complete answer:
Answer for question ‘a’: Every atom contains an extremely dense positively charged particle at its center called the nucleus. Nuclei is made up of a fundamental particle called protons and neutrons.
The mass of the nucleus is a thousand times smaller than the atom. But it contains all the mass of the atom. The stability of the nucleus is due to the competition between attractive nuclear forces among protons and neutrons and repulsive electrostatic force between protons. The nucleus is a neutral compound hence the charge on it is zero.
Let's now answer question b: The scientist who discovered the nucleus of an atom is Ernest Rutherford.
He conducted an experiment in 1911 called Rutherford’s alpha scattering experiment .

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Let's look at the results given by Ernest Rutherford:
-It stated that almost all the mass of the atom was concentrated in a tiny volume in the center of the atom which Rutherford called the nucleus. This mass was the one that was responsible for deflecting the alpha particles that were bombarded on the atom.
This model was also called the “nuclear model”.

Note:
Even though the nucleus contains both protons and neutrons, the overall charge on the nucleus is always zero(0). The first model of atom was proposed by J.J Thompson in 1904 , called the plum pudding model, but it gave no idea about nucleus hence it was later replaced by Rutherford’s nuclear model.