Millikan, Robert A.

Millikan, Robert A. (1868–1953), physicist and Nobel laureate.Robert A. Millikan was born in Morrison, Illinois, the son of a Congregational minister. In 1875, the family moved to Maquoketa, Iowa. He entered Oberlin College in 1886, intending to study Greek and Latin, but found physics more interesting. After receiving his A.B. (1891) and M.A. (1893) from Oberlin, Millikan enrolled as a graduate student at Columbia University, earning his Ph.D. in physics in 1895. In 1896, after a year at the universities of Berlin and Göttingen, he joined the University of Chicago physics department. Millikan married Greta Blanchard in 1902; they had three sons.

Millikan's scientific reputation rests on his measurement of the charge on the electron (1907–1917), his verification of Albert Einstein's quantum equation for the photoelectric effect (1916), and his numerical determination of Max Planck's constant. The success of these experiments made him one of America's best known and most distinguished physicists well before he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923. Actively involved in the organization of American science, Millikan during World War I headed the science and research division of the Army Signal Corps. He also organized the physics work of the new National Research Council.

Moving to the California Institute of Technology in 1921, Millikan, as director of the Norman Bridge physics laboratory, began research on cosmic rays, a term he coined. As chair of the Institute's executive council he functioned as its de facto president and played a major role in its early development until his retirement in 1945.
See also Physical Sciences; Science: From 1914 to 1945.

Bibliography

Robert A. Kargon , The Rise of Robert Millikan: Portrait of a Life in American Science, 1982.
Judith R. Goodstein , Millikan's School: A History of the California Institute of Technology, 1991.

Judith R. Goodstein