Describe Rutherford's Gold Foil Experiment and explain how its results led to the proposal of the nuclear model of the atom.

Rutherford's Gold Foil Experiment involved firing alpha particles at a thin sheet of gold foil. Most alpha particles passed straight through, suggesting atoms are mostly empty space. However, a small fraction were deflected at large angles, and some even bounced back, indicating the presence of a small, dense, positively charged nucleus at the center of the atom.