Plum pudding model

The discovery led to the plum pudding model. This pictured the atom as a continuous ball of positive charge, with negative electrons embedded throughout it. The positive material was like the pudding, and the electrons were like the pieces of fruit within it.

Thomson proposed the plum pudding model. In this model, negative electrons were embedded throughout a ball of positively charged material, rather like pieces of fruit within a pudding. Unlike the modern model, it had no small central nucleus: the positive material was spread throughout the atom.