Millikan Oil-Drop Experiment To Determine The Charge Of An Electron

Topic: Millikan Oil-Drop Experiment The Millikan Oil-Drop experiment was the first experiment to determine the charge of an electron. In 1909, Robert Millikan ultimately came up with a way to determine this charge through finding the minute electric charge on a droplet from an oil mist. Basically, Millikan started with an enclosed chamber that had two flat plates inside, one with a positive charge and one with a negative charge. The portion is split up by the positively charged plate so at the beginning of the experiment, a very fine spray bottle (a.k.a an atomizer) sprays a mist of oil into the top part of the closed chamber. After, some droplets fall into a hole cut in the top positively charged plate and a light source is lit up so that the
He was able to do so with an experiment he conducted in 1840. This experiment involved a paddle wheel connected to an axle that had a string wrapped around it many times. The string was looped around a pulley and had a weight on it. When Joule would release the weight it would pull the string around the pulley, turning the axle, and would make the paddle spin, therefore heating up the water. He did this continuously so the water would heat up a measurable amount. Through his calculations, he was able to show that the amount of potential energy that was being lost by the falling weight was equal to the amount of heat energy gained by the water below. Previously, heat had only come from chemical combustions, friction, or radiation. This was the first time someone had been able to measure the quantity of heat that was equivalent to the corresponding amount of work being done. This experiment was able to prove that you can not create or destroy energy, but you are able to convert it from one form into another. This experiment was specifically shown to prove that you can create potential energy into