~~Robert+Milikan~~

= Robert Andrews Millikan = ** Born:22 March 1868 Passed: 19 December 1953 Port of call: Iowa, United States of America ** []
 * Years of Work: 1909-1913 **

Robert Millikan wore many hats in his 85 years; a chemist, a phsyisist, a Nobel laureate, president of a prestiguous university. But chief among these he was a teacher. While he is most commonly remembered for his work in finding the charge of the electron, his first mark on the world of science was in writing introductory textbooks for physics students. He received his Ph. D in physics from the Columbia University and was the President of California Institute of Technology from 1921-1945. He had three sons, Max Franklin, Glenn Allen, and Clark Blanchard, and in his personal time loved to play tennis.

THE EXPERIMENT
Millikan determined the charge on the electron utilizing the physical properties of oil and water. His "oil drop" rig in its simplest form was a volume of water between two electrodes, into which tiny droplets of oil were forced. Oil being naturally less dense then water seeks to rise above it. while most of the tiny droplets are able to float freely to the serface, some would stay suspended inside the known electric field created between the electrodes. Because the desnsity of the oil is also known, Millikan used it and the known elctric fieldto find the key variable that equated the physical force of the oil trying to rise and the elctromagnetic force holding the drop in place.

Obviously this variable was the apparent charge in the oil

Through many observations he, and his partner Harvey Fletcher, found that all the droplets had a charge that was a multiple of the same number, and they found that number to be around 1.59e-19 C, or about 0.7% off of the actual charge of the electron. []

[]