ELECTRONS AND IONS 311

for periods of between 30 and 60 seconds. A check on evaporation was

made by timing the fall of the drop as it passed three cross-hairs in the
eye-piece of a telescope focused on the drop.
Millikan then proceeded to a more accurate series of observations,
and decided to reduce evaporation further by replacing water by oil,
which had a much lower vapour-pressure. He used an oil spray to blow
oil drops into a closed chamber, and one of the drops would fall through
a small pin-hole in the middle of a circular horizontal brass plate A
inside the chamber. See also p. 313. A parallel plate B was placed
a short distance below A. The oil droplets between the plates were
illuminated, and were seen like a bright star on a black background.
The drops were found to be charged by friction on emerging from
the spray, and when an electric field was connected between A, B, the
drop moved upwards. Just before reaching the top plate the battery
was switched off, and the drop now began to fall under gravity. The
same time of fall, tq, between two cross-hairs of the telescope eye-
piece was obtained, but the time t f , with the field switched on, varied
considerably owing to the capture of positive and negative ions by a
given drop from the surrounding air. In one series of determinations the
distance apart of the plates A, B was 1.6 cm, the distance of fall was
10.21 mm, the voltage used was 5,088.8 volts, the speed of fall under
gravity was 0.08584 cm s-1, the oil density was 919.9 kg m-3,
the radius of the drop was 2.76 x 10-6m and the air viscosity was
1.824 x 10-5N s m-2.
Theory of Oil-drop experiment. Suppose mg is the apparent weight of
an observed drop, allowing for the buoyancy of the air. Then, if n is
the viscosity of air, a the radius of the drop and v1the velocity of fall,
it follows from Stokes' law that
mg = 62inav1.
If E is the electric field intensity, enthe charge on the drop, and v2 the
upward velocity when the field is applied, then
Een-- nzg = 67r7tav2.
. Een — mg_v2
mg v1
771 a
:. en = a(vi + v2) (1)
Ey,
Thus the charge on the drop is proportional to (v1-1- v2), or, since the
1
distance of travel is the same, to ( — +11, where t, is the time of fall
tg t f/
under gravity and t fis the time of rise when the field is applied. Millikan
1
found that, experimenting with different drops, (1+ —) was always
tg if
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312 SCHOLARSHIP PHYSICS

an integral multiple of a constant quantity for a given drop, showing
there was a basic unit of electricity, the charge on an electron.
If the charge on a given drop changes from en to e,: during observa-
tion due to the capture of an ion in air, its velocity in the electric field
will change, from v2 to v2' say. Then, from above,
Ee„' — mg =
and hence en' = ±g(v, -I- v2')
Ey,
From (1) on p. 313, by subtraction,
en' — en = mg(v 2' — v2) (2)
Ey,
The change of charge is thus proportional to the change of speed while
the drop is in the electric field. Measurements by Millikan, using equa-
tion (2), showed that (v 2' — v2) was always an integral multiple of a
constant quantity. The multiples ranged from 1 to 18. This again
showed the existence of a basic unit or electronic charge.

Formula for charge on drop. The actual charge en on a drop can be

calculated if the radius a of the drop is known. From the formula on
p. 311, we have
mg = 3na3(p — o)g = 67inav1,
where p, a are the densities of oil and air respectively.
[ 9,„ 1/2
a=
2g(p —
Substituting for mg, or 4ra3(p — o)g/3, in equation (1), we obtain
— 4T/3/2 - 1 11/2(111 + v2)v11/2
en— (3)
g09
Millikan's experiments on hundreds of drops enabled the basic unit of
charge, e, to be found from this formula.

Millikan's later experiments. Millikan began a further series of experi-

ments, lasting several years, to determine more accurately the charge
on an electron. The apparatus he used from 1914 to 1916 is a refinement
of previous years, and is shown in Fig. 211. Its principal features are:
1. An oil-drop atomizer A, blown by carefully dried and dust-free air.
2. A vessel B immersed in a constant temperature bath, C, of oil,
which kept temperature fluctuations down to less than 0.02° C during
an observation. All slight irregularities disappeared after the bath was
installed.
3. Convection currents were also reduced by absorbing heat from the
illuminating arc lamp by means of a water cell and a solution of cupric
chloride.