Ernest Rutherford used about ________ thick gold foil for alpha scattering experiments.

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Accepted Answer

Known fact: Rutherford's alpha-scattering (Geiger–Marsden) experiments used an extremely thin gold foil, commonly stated in textbooks as about 1000 atoms thick.

Step 1 — Historical choice: Among the options, the standard, widely-cited value is 1000 atoms (option (2)).

Step 2 — Consistency check by estimate: The atomic diameter of gold is about $0.288\ 	ext{nm}$ (≈ $2.88	imes10^{-10}\ 	ext{m}$). For $1000$ atomic layers the thickness is roughly

$1000	imes0.288\ 	ext{nm}=288\ 	ext{nm}=2.88	imes10^{-7}\ 	ext{m}$,

which is consistent with the order of magnitude of very thin metal foils used in such scattering experiments.

Conclusion: the correct choice is 1000 atoms, i.e. option (2) which is (b).

FINAL_ANSWER: b

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