Question

Who was the first to successfully determine the charge of an Electron?
1. Robert Andrews Millikan
2. Ernest Rutherford
3. Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
4. J.J. Thompson

Answer 1

Correct Answer - Option 1 : Robert Andrews Millikan

The Correct Answer is Robert Andrews Millikan.

• In 1906, Robert Millikan was able to determine the value of the charge on the electron in his ``oil drop'' experiment.
• Robert Andrews Millikan was born on March 22, 1868, in Morrison, Illinois, U.S.
  • He is an American physicist honoured with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for his study of the elementary electronic charge and the photoelectric effect. 

• Ernest Rutherford
  • He was a New Zealand physicist who came to be known as the father of nuclear physics.
• Charles-Augustin de Coulomb
  • He was a French military engineer and physicist.
  • He is best known as the eponymous discoverer of what is now called Coulomb's law, the description of the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion, though he also did important work on friction.
• Sir Joseph John Thomson OM PRS
  • He was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered.
  • The charge on the electron was first measured by J.J. Thomson and two co-workers (J.S.E. Townsend and H.A. Wilson).