Millikan's Struggle with Theory
FEATURES Did the great experimentalist doctor his own findings to suit his beliefs? Perhaps not, as aclose look at his beliefs reveals. Millikan's struggle with theory Gerald Holton n 1916 Millikan published his experi by any other experimenter. rectly at the ordinates, he decided"simply I mental determination of the value of Several factors were responsible for the to cut the feet off"where those curves were Planck's constant, with remarkable preci success of the experiment, performed at trailing on too far. sion. Itwas later cited as part ofhis Nobel the Ryerson Laboratory ofthe University In short, a triumphant work by a su Prize award. But as a study of that paper ofChicago. First ofall, Millikan's use ofan perbly confident scientist, ofhighest im together with Millikan's subsequent com ingenious device he termed "a machine portance in its day, and richly deserving to ments over the years reveal, he initiallyre shop in vacuo;' assembled thanks to "the be cited as part of his Nobel Prize award fused to accept the interpretation of the skill and experience of the mechanician, in 1923, "for his work on the elementary theoretical meaning ofhis work, as seen Mr. Julius Pearson" .Essentially, the device charge ofelectricityandthe photoelectric from the perspective of a present-day allowed a rotating sharp knife, controlled effect". If historically minded scholars physicist.Yet, over time, Millikan adjusted from outside the evacuated glass contain look through that 1916 volume of the his view retroactively to accept the mean er by electromagnetic means, to clean off Physical Review inwhich Millikan's paper ing ofwhat he had done - namely to pro the surface of the metal used (sodium, appeared, they will notice that physics in vide crucial support for Einstein's heuris potassium, lithium) before exposing it to America at that time was still a mixed bag.
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