How did Millikan measure the electron's charge?
My oil-drop experiment involved observing tiny oil droplets suspended in an electric field. By carefully measuring the terminal velocity of the drops as they fell under gravity and then adjusting the electric field to suspend them, I could calculate the charge on each droplet. The crucial insight was that these charges were always integer multiples of a fundamental unit, which I identified as the charge of a single electron. Precision in measurement was paramount.
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