An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A simple model assuming that the positive charge of the atom is not distributed uniformly throughout the atom (unlike the → Thomson atom), but is concentrated in a minute center or nucleus, and the negative charge is distributed over a sphere of radius comparable with the atomic radius.

See also: After the British physicist and chesmist Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), who put forward this model in 1911; Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908; → atom.