Millikan Oil-Drop Experiment

​
time
This Demonstration simulates the famous Millikan oil-drop experiment that provided evidence that electric charge is quantized, occurring only as an integer multiple of an elementary charge, now known to equal
e=1.60×
-19
10
C
(coulombs). In a chamber, an atomizer emits oil drops that fall through a hole in the upper plate and are ionized by X-rays before hitting the lower plate. A high voltage between the two plates is adjusted so that the oil drops are suspended, and they are viewed through a microscope. Millikan won the Nobel Prize in Physics for this experiment in 1923.

External Links

Millikan, Robert (1868–1953) (ScienceWorld)
Electron (ScienceWorld)
Voltage (ScienceWorld)
Ionization (ScienceWorld)
X-Ray (ScienceWorld)

Permanent Citation

Enrique Zeleny
​
​"Millikan Oil-Drop Experiment"​
​http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/MillikanOilDropExperiment/​
​Wolfram Demonstrations Project​
​Published: December 1, 2011