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Millikan oil-drop experiment
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Diagram of the Millikan oil-drop experiment showing a chamber with oil droplets sprayed from an atomizer, falling between two charged metal plates. A light source and viewing microscope are used to observe the droplets, which are influenced by electric and ionizing radiation to measure their charge.
Robert Millikan's method for measuring the charge of an electron
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Italian-born physicist Dr. Enrico Fermi draws a diagram at a blackboard with mathematical equations. circa 1950.
Physics and Natural Law
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Diagram of the Millikan oil-drop experiment showing a chamber with oil droplets sprayed from an atomizer, falling between two charged metal plates. A light source and viewing microscope are used to observe the droplets, which are influenced by electric and ionizing radiation to measure their charge.
Millikan oil-drop experiment Between 1909 and 1910 the American physicist Robert Millikan conducted a series of oil-drop experiments. By comparing applied electric force with changes in the motion of the oil drops, he was able to determine the electric charge on each drop. He found that all of the drops had charges that were simple multiples of a single number, the fundamental charge of the electron.

Millikan oil-drop experiment

physics
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Millikan oil-drop experiment, first direct and compelling measurement of the electric charge of a single electron. It was performed originally in 1909 by the American physicist Robert A. Millikan, who devised a straightforward method of measuring the minute electric charge that is present on many of the droplets in an oil mist. The force on any electric charge in an electric field is equal to the product of the charge and the electric field. Millikan...

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