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.
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25 Facts About Robert Millikan
2.
Robert Millikan graduated from Oberlin College in 1891 and obtained his doctorate at Columbia University in 1895.
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3.
In 1909 Robert Millikan began a series of experiments to determine the electric charge carried by a single electron.
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4.
Robert Millikan began by measuring the course of charged water droplets in an electric field.
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5.
Robert Millikan obtained more precise results in 1910 with his famous oil-drop experiment in which he replaced water with oil.
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6.
In 1914 Robert Millikan took up with similar skill the experimental verification of the equation introduced by Albert Einstein in 1905 to describe the photoelectric effect.
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7.
Robert Millikan used this same research to obtain an accurate value of Planck's constant.
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8.
In 1921 Robert Millikan left the University of Chicago to become director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.
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9.
Robert Millikan went to high school in Maquoketa, Iowa and received a bachelor's degree in the classics from Oberlin College in 1891 and his doctorate in physics from Columbia University in 1895 – he was the first to earn a Ph.
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10.
Professor Robert Millikan took sole credit, in return for Harvey Fletcher claiming full authorship on a related result for his dissertation.
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11.
Robert Millikan went on to win the 1923 Nobel Prize for Physics, in part for this work, and Fletcher kept the agreement a secret until his death.
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12.
Robert Millikan's experiment measured the force on tiny charged droplets of oil suspended against gravity between two metal electrodes.
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13.
Beauty of the oil-drop experiment is that as well as allowing quite accurate determination of the fundamental unit of charge, Robert Millikan's apparatus provided a 'hands on' demonstration that charge is actually quantized.
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14.
When Einstein published his seminal 1905 paper on the particle theory of light, Robert Millikan was convinced that it had to be wrong, because of the vast body of evidence that had already shown that light was a wave.
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15.
Robert Millikan undertook a decade-long experimental program to test Einstein's theory, which required building what he described as "a machine shop in vacuo" in order to prepare the very clean metal surface of the photoelectrode.
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16.
Since Robert Millikan's work formed some of the basis for modern particle physics, it is ironic that he was rather conservative in his opinions about 20th century developments in physics, as in the case of the photon theory.
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17.
Robert Millikan is credited with measuring the value of Planck's constant by using photoelectric emission graphs of various metals.
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18.
In 1917, solar astronomer George Ellery Hale convinced Robert Millikan to begin spending several months each year at the Throop College of Technology, a small academic institution in Pasadena, California, that Hale wished to transform into a major center for scientific research and education.
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19.
Robert Millikan thought his cosmic ray photons were the "birth cries" of new atoms continually being created to counteract entropy and prevent the heat death of the universe.
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20.
Robert Millikan was Vice Chairman of the National Research Council during World War I During that time, he helped to develop anti-submarine and meteorological devices.
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21.
Robert Millikan was a member of the organizing committee of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, and in his private life was an enthusiastic tennis player.
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22.
Robert Millikan was married and had three sons, the eldest of whom, Clark B Millikan, became a prominent aerodynamic engineer.
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23.
Religious man and the son of a minister, in his later life Robert Millikan argued strongly for a complementary relationship between Christian faith and science.
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24.
Robert Millikan was a Christian theist and proponent of theistic evolution.
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25.
Robert Millikan died of a heart attack at his home in San Marino, California in 1953 at age 85, and was interred in the "Court of Honor" at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
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