Robert+Milikan-1905

Robert Milikan was born on March 22, 1868 in Maquoketa, Iowa. He lived to be 85 and died on December 19, 1953. He attended Oberlin College in 1891 and recieved his doctorate in physics from Columbia University in 1895. Milikan was asked to teach physics his junior year of college. This was the basis for his physics interests. He had no prior knowledge of physics and was forced to teach himself.

While at the University of Chicago, Milikan worked on an oil-drop experiment in which he measured the charge on a single electron. His experiment measured the force on a tiny charged droplets of oil suspended against gravity between two metal electrodes. Knowing the electric field, the charge on the droplet could be determined. This expermint led Milikan to find that the charge on an electron was 1.592 * 10^-19 coulombs. This gave proof to the existance of subatomic particles, which was still debatible at the time. Milikan also used his discovery to argue Einstein's particle theory of light.