Robert Millikan Atomic Theory

As chairman of the executive council of caltech from 1921 until his retirement in 1945 millikan turned that school into one of the leading research institutions in the united states. Robert millikan s accomplishments were the design and fine tuning of experiments which unambiguously confirmed the most important scientific theories of his time providing the implications for atomic theory.

Atomic Theory Robert Andrew Millikan

Millikan went on to demonstrate the photoelectron effect providing a valuable proof of albert einstein s equations.

Robert millikan atomic theory. In 1896 he became an assistant at the university of chicago where he became a full professor in 1910. Robert millikan was a physicist who discovered the elementary charge of an electron using the oil drop experiment. Robert andrews millikan was an american experimental physicist honored with the nobel prize for physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electric charge and for his work on the photoelectric effect.

March 22 1868 december 19 1953. Both numbers allowed the danish physicist niels bohr to finally calculate rydberg s constant and provided the first and most important proof of the new atomic theory. He charged droplets of oil between two electrodes and balanced the gravitational force with the upward forces using mechanical equilibrium to determine the charge which he found within one percent of the current accepted value.

Millikan s contribution to this hypothesis was to specify the size of the electron s charge. Robert millikan s primary contribution to atomic theory came as a result of his oil drop experiment which measured an electron s charge. His oil drop experiment confirmed the existence of the electron and accurately determined its charge.

The force on any electric charge in an electric field is equal to the product of the charge and the electric field. Learn about the life and achievements of american physicist robert millikan. Millikan who devised a straightforward method of measuring the minute electric charge that is present on many of the droplets in an oil mist.

It was performed originally in 1909 by the american physicist robert a. Thomson had suggested the hypothesis that an electron s mass was at least 1 000 times less than the mass of the tiniest atom. His oil drop experiment helped to quantify the charge of an electron which contributed greatly to our understanding of.

His earliest major success was the accurate determination of the charge carried by an electron using the elegant falling drop method. He also proved that this quantity was a constant for all electrons 1910 thus demonstrating the atomic structure of electricity. In 1909 millikan began a series of experiments to determine the electric charg.

Millikan graduated from oberlin college in 1891 and obtained his doctorate at columbia university in 1895. Millikan proved that this radiation is indeed of extraterrestrial origin and he named it cosmic rays.

Robert Millikan

Robert Andrews Millikan Wikipedia