Millikan’s oil drop experiment proved that electric charge is quantized. At the time, there was still great debate whether electric charge was continuous or not. Millikan believed that there was a smallest unit of charge, and he set out to prove it. This was the big result of the oil drop experiment.
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What did the oil drop experiment prove?
Millikan’s oil drop experiment proved that electric charge is quantized. At the time, there was still great debate whether electric charge was continuous or not. Millikan believed that there was a smallest unit of charge, and he set out to prove it. This was the big result of the oil drop experiment.
Why was the oil drop experiment important?
On the tiny charge of an isolated oil droplet, Millikan was able to calculate both the sum of electric force and the magnitude of the electric field and to determine the magnitude of the charge itself from the results.
What did Millikan conclude after his oil drop experiment?
What did Millikan conclude after performing his oil-drop experiment? The charge on any oil drop is an integral multiple of the charge on an electron. an electric field.
What is the conclusion of Millikan oil drop experiment?
Milliken’s Oil Drop Experiment Conclusion The charge over any oil droplet is always an integral value of e (1.6 x 10-19). Hence, the conclusion of Millikens Oil Drop Experiment is that the charge is said to be quantized, i.e. the charge on any particle will always be an integral multiple of e.
Why do some oil droplets move up and some down?
Oil drops are sprayed in between the plates. You will notice with no applied voltage (therefore no electric field) the oil drops fall due to gravity. Once a voltage is applied between the plates, you will notice some drops will slow down but keep moving down, a few will stop moving and others will start moving upwards.
What did Rutherford discover in his experiment?
Rutherford’s gold foil experiment showed that the atom is mostly empty space with a tiny, dense, positively-charged nucleus. Based on these results, Rutherford proposed the nuclear model of the atom.
Is Millikan oil drop experiment important for JEE mains?
No, it’s just extra info.
What force causes the oil drops to fall?
Under the influence of gravity and air resistance, some of the oil droplets fall through a small hole cut in the top metal plate.
What are possible charges of oil droplets?
Looking at the charge data that Millikan gathered, you may have recognized that the charge of an oil droplet is always a multiple of a specific charge, 1.6×10−19C.
What did Millikan determine from his oil drop experiment?
The Millikan Oil Drop Experiment An experiment performed by Robert Millikan in 1909 determined the size of the charge on an electron. He also determined that there was a smallest ‘unit’ charge, or that charge is ‘quantized’. He received the Nobel Prize for his work.
What did Robert Millikan’s oil drop experiment prove?
Millikan ’s oil drop experiment proved that electric charge is quantized. Millikan believed that there was a smallest unit of charge, and he set out to prove it. This was the big result of the oil drop experiment.
What was Robert A. Millikan’s oil drop experiment?
Summary Robert Millikan and Harvey Fletcher conducted the oil drop experiment to determine the charge of an electron. They suspended tiny charged droplets of oil between two metal electrodes by balancing downward gravitational force with upward drag and electric forces. They later used their findings to determine the mass of the electron.
What was the oil drop experiment hypothesis?
Millikan oil-drop experiment, first direct and compelling measurement of the electric charge of a single electron. It was performed originally in 1909 by the American physicist Robert A. Millikan, who devised a method of measuring the minute electric charge that is present on many of the droplets in an oil mist.