How did Rutherford conclude that most of an atoms mass is concentrated in its nucleus when he did the scattering experiment? In the textbook answer it says the evidence were the large angle scatterings and some coming back, it says 'this can only occur if the alpha particle collides with another particle much greater than its own mass'.
But surely you could have - a not very massive nucleus (when I say massive I mean relative mass) but was just very highly charged and the electrostatic repulsion was great enough to cause the alpha particle to bounce back or be scattered large angles depending on its proximity to the nucleus? just because some bounced back or scattered large angles does not mean the nucleus mass is concentrated in its centre?