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
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapor, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows nothing of this.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“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 God’s hand, his brain as God’s brain, his purpose as God’s 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 (1856–1950)