Why did rutherford conclude that an atom nucleus has a positive charge instead of a negative charge?

The alpha particles that Rutherford used to fire at the metal foil were positively charged. In his experiment most of the alpha particles were not deflected and passed through he deduced that the atomic nucleus was positively charged they consist of 2 protons and 2 neutrons.

An  atom  (ours, not carroll's) consists of a positively charged  nucleus, surrounded by one or more negatively charged particles called  electrons. the positive charges equal the negative charges, so the atom has no overall charge; it is electrically neutral. most of an atom's mass is in its nucleus; the mass of an electron is only 1/1836 the mass of the lightest nucleus, that of hydrogen. although the nucleus is heavy, it is quite small compared with the overall size of an atom. the radius of a typical atom is around 0.1 to 0.25 nanometres (nm), whereas the radius of a nucleus is about 10-6  nm.  *  if an atom were enlarged to the size of the earth, its nucleus would be only 200 feet in diameter and could easily rest inside a small football stadium.read more on -