The gold foil experiment was performed by Ernest Rutherford along with his collaborators Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden around 1909-1911. Rutherford designed the experiment to study the structure of the atom by bombarding a thin gold foil with fast-moving alpha particles. This experiment led to the discovery of the atomic nucleus, revealing that the atom has a small, dense, positively charged nucleus with electrons orbiting around it. Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden carried out the actual experimental work under Rutherford's supervision.
