Robert Millikan

Robert Millikan (1868-1953), American physicist, best known for his work in atomic physics. Robert Andrews Millikan was born in Morrison, Illinois, and educated at Columbia University and the universities of Berlin and Göttingen. He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1896, and in 1910 he became professor of physics there. He left the university in 1921 to become director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics of the California Institute of Technology. He was awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in physics for his famous “oil-drop” experiments, which measured the charge on an electron and showed that the charge exists only as a whole number of units of that charge. His other contributions include important research on cosmic rays (which he named) and X rays, and the experimental determination of Planck's constant. He wrote technical studies and several books on the relationship between science and religion.