Home › A-Level 9702 › Particle physics
AS · Topic 11

Inside the atom.

From Rutherford's gold foil to the Standard Model in miniature: alpha-scattering reveals the tiny dense nucleus, beta decay needs a ghostly neutrino to balance the books, and every hadron is built from quarks. The most modern topic on the AS syllabus, where a sheet of foil and a careful count of charges open up the deepest structure of matter. Play the three simulations below. The gamified lessons, the topic Paper 1 practice and the concept map are live below too.

Simulations · live
Interactive · live Alpha-particle scattering Fire alpha particles at a gold nucleus and watch most pass straight through while a rare few bounce back, revealing a small, dense, positive core. Loads only when you launch, so the page stays fast.
Interactive · live Beta decay and the neutrino Watch a neutron turn into a proton, electron and antineutrino, and see why the continuous β-energy spectrum forced physicists to invent the neutrino. Loads only when you launch, so the page stays fast.
Interactive · live Quark builder Combine up, down and other quarks to assemble protons, neutrons and mesons, checking that the charges always add up to a whole number. Loads only when you launch, so the page stays fast.
Paper 1 practice · live
Multiple-choice questions · with worked answers Paper 1 style multiple-choice set A full topic set across nuclei and radiation, antiparticles and neutrinos, and the quark model of hadrons, with the reasoning behind every answer. Open practice →
Lessons · live
Atoms, nuclei and radiation → Antiparticles and neutrinos → Quarks and leptons →
Concept map
Open the concept map →