author
Robert Andrews Millikan
1868–1953
Best known for the famous oil-drop experiment, this Nobel Prize-winning physicist helped pin down the electric charge of the electron and became one of the most visible scientific figures in America. He also played a major role in building the California Institute of Technology into a leading research center.
1 Audiobook
The electron, its isolation and measurement and the determination of some of its properties
by Robert Andrews Millikan
About the author
Born in Morrison, Illinois, on March 22, 1868, Robert Andrews Millikan studied at Oberlin College and earned his doctorate at Columbia before joining the University of Chicago. His experiments on electricity and light made him one of the leading experimental physicists of his time.
Millikan is most closely associated with the oil-drop experiment, which gave a precise value for the elementary electric charge. In 1923 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect.
Beyond the laboratory, he was an influential teacher, textbook writer, and scientific organizer. After moving to California, he helped shape Caltech into a world-class institution and became one of the best-known public voices for science in the first half of the twentieth century.