Robert Andrews Millikan – the second son born to Reverend Silas Franklin Millikan in Morrison (Illinois) on the 22nd March 1868 – was a revolutionary scientist. After graduating from Maquoketa Community High in Iowa, he attended Oberlin College (Ohio) between 1886 and 1891 to become an elementary physics instructor. Millikan completed his education by attending Columbia University in 1893-1895. Columbia University awarded him a Ph.D. degree in 1895. Millikan then spent a year at the Universities of Berlin, Gottingen and Berlin. A. Michelson had invited him to come back. A. Michelson accepted an offer to work as an assistant at Ryerson Laboratory in Chicago.
Millikan was married to Greta Blanchard in 1902. They had three children: Clark Blanchard (now Max Franklin), Glenn Allen (now Max Franklin) and Max Franklin. Millikan continued to teach at the University of Chicago until 1921. Millikan, in 1912-1915, proved Einstein’s crucial photoelectric formula. Millikan also worked on anti-submarine devices and meteorological instruments during World War I. In the years 1920-1923, he was busy with hot-spark elemental spectroscopy. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for 1923. Millikan died in San Marino on December 19, 1953 (he was 85). Millikan, who lived a long life as an author, was prolific throughout. Millikan was a tennis player and golfer when he didn’t work as a scientist. Millikan was awarded honorary doctorates by 25 universities. The Nobel Prize was awarded in 1923. Millikan’s discoveries are still appreciated today, even after his passing.
Millikan performed an experiment in 1909 that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. (The Millikan Oil Drop Experiment). The Oil Drop Experiment was the name of this experiment. This experiment was a tube-shaped chamber that contained two plates, one positive and one negative. The plate with the positive charge was at the top, while the plate with the negative charge was in the middle. A microscope was also used to look into the lower half of the chamber. An atomizer containing oil was attached on the top.
The bottom of the chamber was equipped with a flashlight (The Editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica). Millikan measured the electrical charge accurately using the setup above. This was the only time this had ever been done. The atomizer was used to spray oil droplets in the upper chamber, and gravity then pulled some of the droplets down through the hole into the lower chamber. The droplets gained a negatively charged charge due to the metal plate that was ionized from radiation when they fell into the hole. Millikan illuminated the drops with a flashlight and measured their mass through a microscope.
The Encyclop?dia Britannica’s Editors suggest that you can turn the voltage up or lower to change the direction of the droplet. The drop moved upwards when the electricity was higher. It moved downwards when it was lower. Millikan calculated the charge of a droplet by using the voltage required to keep the droplet still and its mass. Millikan determined that by repeating the process several times, the electric charges on different droplets are always multiples of one number. This number is the smallest. This number is approximately 1.602?10-9.
