The American physicist Robert Andrews Millikan, b. Morrison, Ill., Mar. 22, 1868, d. Dec. 19, 1953, determined through an oil-drop experiment the value of the charge on an electron and demonstrated that the charge was a discrete constant rather than a statistical average. For this work, as well as for his work on the photoelectric effect, he received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1923. Millikan was affiliated with the University of Chicago (1896-1921) and the California Institute of Technology (1921-53). His First Course in Physics (1906), written with Henry Gale, was a standard textbook for many years.
James A. Booth
Bibliography: Kevles, Daniel J., The Physicists (1978); Millikan, Robert A., The Autobiography of Robert A. Millikan (1950); Weber, Robert L., Pioneers of Science, 2d ed. (1988).
Last modified on: Monday, October 20, 1997.