Too Tiny To See?
A typical nucleus has a radius of about 10-15 meters, yet Rutherford
was able to “see” the nucleus of a gold atom. How did he do it?
We usually see by detecting light that has bounced off objects
into our eyes. If the object is very small compared to the wavelength
of the light, then the light diffracts around the object and the image
is lost. To see very tiny objects we need very short wavelengths.