The famed oil drop experiment performed by Millikan and Fletcher in 1909 helped determine what fundamental physical constant?
Harvey Fletcher the parents of seven children. Harvey Fletcher was the father of James C. Fletcher, former president of the University of Utah and NASA Administrator and of Harvey J. Fletcher, a Brigham Young University math professor. In 1911 Fletcher was the first student ever to earn a Ph.D. "summa cum laude" from the University of Chicago. His dissertation research was on methods to determine the charge of an electron. This included the oil drop experiment commonly attributed to his advisor and collaborator, Robert Andrews Millikan. Millikan took sole credit, in return for Fletcher claiming full authorship on a related result for
Oil drop experiment Oil drop experiment The oil drop experiment was performed by Robert A. Millikan and Harvey Fletcher in 1909 to measure the elementary electric charge (the charge of the electron). The experiment entailed observing tiny electrically charged droplets of oil located between two parallel metal surfaces, forming the plates of a capacitor. The plates were oriented horizontally, with one plate above the other. A mist of atomized oil drops was introduced through a small hole in the top plate and was ionized by an x-ray, making them negatively charged. First, with zero applied electric field, the velocity of a falling droplet