The oil drop experiment was an experiment performed by Robert Millikan and Harvey Fletcher in 1911 to measure the elementary electric charge (the charge of the electron).
The experiment entailed balancing the downward gravitational force with the upward drag and electric forces on tiny charged droplets of oil suspended between two metal electrodes. Since the density of the oil was known, the droplets' masses, and therefore their gravitational and buoyant forces, could be determined from their observed radii. Using a known electric field, Millikan and Fletcher could determine even the charge on oil droplets in mechanical equilibrium. By repeating the experiment for many droplets, they confirmed that the charges were all multiples of some fundamental value, and calculated it to be 1.5924(17)×10−19 C, within 1% of the currently accepted value of 1.602176487(40)×10−19 C. They proposed that this was the charge of a single electron.
Read more about Oil Drop Experiment: Background, Fraud Allegations, Millikan's Experiment As An Example of Psychological Effects in Scientific Methodology
Famous quotes containing the words oil, drop and/or experiment:
“As a rule they will refuse even to sample a foreign dish, they regard such things as garlic and olive oil with disgust, life is unliveable to them unless they have tea and puddings.”
—George Orwell (19031950)
“The island dreams under the dawn
And great boughs drop tranquillity;
The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,
A parrot sways upon a tree,
Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)
“To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realization of God, to regard his hands as Gods hand, his brain as Gods brain, his purpose as Gods purpose. He must regard God as a helpless Longing, which longed him into existence by its desperate need for an executive organ.”
—George Bernard Shaw (18561950)