Robert Millikan Biography Quotes 3 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Robert Andrews Millikan was born on March 22, 1868, in Morrison, Illinois, into a family rooted in education and the ministry. After early schooling in the Midwest, he attended Oberlin College in Ohio, where he discovered a talent for teaching and a growing fascination with physics. Soon after graduating, he served as an instructor and author of introductory materials, setting a pattern for the rest of his career: a blend of meticulous experiment, clear exposition, and vigorous advocacy for science education.

Formative Career at the University of Chicago
Millikan joined the University of Chicago during the rise of its physics department under Albert A. Michelson. In this environment he matured as an experimentalist, collaborated closely with colleagues and students, and coauthored widely used textbooks with Henry Gordon Gale that helped standardize physics instruction in American colleges. Drawing on a careful, hands-on approach, he developed experimental techniques that would become foundational in the training of laboratory physicists.

The Oil-Drop Experiment and the Electron
Between 1909 and 1913 Millikan performed the oil-drop experiment that measured the elementary charge of the electron with unprecedented precision. Using tiny droplets suspended between electrically charged plates, he determined discrete charge values that clustered around a fundamental unit. The experiment offered decisive evidence for the existence of a smallest quantum of electric charge. Harvey Fletcher, a graduate student who worked closely with Millikan, played an important role in refining apparatus and procedures; later historical discussions have considered authorship and credit in light of Fletcher's contributions and Millikan's selective reporting of data. Despite debate over data selection practices, modern analyses show his central quantitative result was robust and transformative, establishing a numerical value for the electron's charge that anchored the emerging quantum and atomic picture of matter.

Photoelectric Effect and Nobel Prize
Millikan also undertook a definitive experimental study of the photoelectric effect, using precision measurements to determine Planck's constant and to test the linear relation between electron energy and light frequency predicted by Albert Einstein's photoelectric equation. Although initially skeptical of light quanta as a concept, Millikan verified the numerical relation with great accuracy. For his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect, he received the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics. These achievements tied laboratory measurement to the broader revolution in modern physics, connecting empirical craftsmanship to the theoretical frameworks of Max Planck and Einstein.

Leadership at Caltech
In 1921 Millikan moved to Pasadena to help transform Throop College of Technology into the California Institute of Technology. Working alongside astronomer George Ellery Hale and chemist Arthur Amos Noyes, he became the key administrative architect of the institute, serving as chairman of the Executive Council (effectively its president) for more than two decades. Millikan recruited outstanding scientists and engineers, including Richard C. Tolman in physical chemistry and relativity, Charles C. Lauritsen in nuclear physics, Theodore von Karman in aeronautics at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory, and a rising generation that included Linus Pauling and, later, Carl D. Anderson. Under his leadership, Caltech matured into a premier research university with a distinctive emphasis on close ties between fundamental science and engineering.

Cosmic Rays and Public Scientific Debates
From the 1920s onward, Millikan became deeply interested in radiation from space and popularized the term cosmic rays. He organized mountain and high-altitude measurements in the American West to probe their origin and energy. In a widely watched scientific debate with Arthur Holly Compton, Millikan initially argued for a predominantly gamma-ray character, while Compton marshaled evidence that they were charged particles. Over time, the charged-particle view won out, but Millikan's experiments were influential in establishing cosmic rays as a central research topic. At Caltech, this program fostered discoveries by younger colleagues, most notably Carl D. Anderson's observation of the positron in 1932 and later work on the muon, which cemented the institute's role at the frontier of particle and cosmic-ray physics.

Service, Writing, and Public Influence
Millikan's career bridged the laboratory and the public sphere. During World War I he played a prominent role in organizing scientific work for national needs through bodies that culminated in the National Research Council. He wrote textbooks and popular essays to explain physical ideas to broad audiences, including volumes that connected scientific progress to everyday life and civic culture. Committed to the idea that science and religion could coexist, he spoke frequently on their compatibility. His views on social policy, however, included support for eugenic ideas then widespread among some American elites, a stance that later drew sharp criticism and prompted reassessment of his civic legacy.

Mentorship and Scientific Style
Millikan was known for his insistence on exacting experimental standards. He mentored students and collaborators to value precision, extended observation, and well-controlled apparatus. This ethos shaped generations of experimentalists. Yet it also gave rise to controversy when he published a classic paper on the oil-drop experiment while omitting some runs he considered flawed. The episode sparked ongoing discussion about data selection, authorship, and the human dimensions of experimental practice. Even in debate, his work functioned as a benchmark, enabling refinements that led to ever more precise determinations of fundamental constants.

Personal Life
In 1902 he married Greta Blanchard. They raised three sons: Clark Blanchard Millikan, who became a prominent aeronautical engineer at Caltech; Glenn Allan Millikan, a physiologist known for innovations in measuring oxygen saturation; and Max Franklin Millikan, an economist who later worked in academia and public policy. His home life in Pasadena and nearby San Marino placed him within a community of scientists, engineers, and civic leaders, many of whom he had helped attract to Southern California. The network he built linked laboratories, classrooms, industry, and philanthropy in a regional model of science-driven development.

Final Years and Legacy
Millikan remained a visible figure at Caltech and in national scientific councils well into the 1940s, continuing to advise on research directions and to champion support for basic science. He died on December 19, 1953, in San Marino, California. His legacy is complex and enduring: landmark measurements that fixed the electron's charge and verified the photoelectric relation; institution-building that shaped Caltech and American physics; mentorship that launched notable careers; and public advocacy that helped define the role of science in modern life, accompanied by social and political views now widely repudiated. Among the scientists who figured most prominently around him were A. A. Michelson, Henry Gordon Gale, Harvey Fletcher, George Ellery Hale, Arthur Amos Noyes, Arthur Holly Compton, Theodore von Karman, Richard C. Tolman, Charles C. Lauritsen, Linus Pauling, and Carl D. Anderson. Together with Millikan, they influenced the trajectory of 20th-century physics in the United States.

Our collection contains 3 quotes who is written by Robert, under the main topics: Deep - Knowledge.

Other people realated to Robert: E. T. Bell (Mathematician), Fritz Zwicky (Scientist), Victor Francis Hess (Physicist), Walther Bothe (Physicist)