<P> The electron 's charge was more carefully measured by the American physicists Robert Millikan and Harvey Fletcher in their oil - drop experiment of 1909 , the results of which were published in 1911 . This experiment used an electric field to prevent a charged droplet of oil from falling as a result of gravity . This device could measure the electric charge from as few as 1 -- 150 ions with an error margin of less than 0.3 % . Comparable experiments had been done earlier by Thomson 's team , using clouds of charged water droplets generated by electrolysis , and in 1911 by Abram Ioffe , who independently obtained the same result as Millikan using charged microparticles of metals , then published his results in 1913 . However , oil drops were more stable than water drops because of their slower evaporation rate , and thus more suited to precise experimentation over longer periods of time . </P>
<P> The electron 's charge was more carefully measured by the American physicists Robert Millikan and Harvey Fletcher in their oil - drop experiment of 1909 , the results of which were published in 1911 . This experiment used an electric field to prevent a charged droplet of oil from falling as a result of gravity . This device could measure the electric charge from as few as 1 -- 150 ions with an error margin of less than 0.3 % . Comparable experiments had been done earlier by Thomson 's team , using clouds of charged water droplets generated by electrolysis , and in 1911 by Abram Ioffe , who independently obtained the same result as Millikan using charged microparticles of metals , then published his results in 1913 . However , oil drops were more stable than water drops because of their slower evaporation rate , and thus more suited to precise experimentation over longer periods of time . </P>
how was the charge of an electron discovered
how was the charge of an electron discovered
The electron 's charge was more carefully measured by the American physicists Robert Millikan and Harvey Fletcher in their oil - drop experiment of 1909 , the results of which were published in 1911 . This experiment used an electric field to prevent a charged droplet of oil from falling as a result of gravity . This device could measure the electric charge from as few as 1 -- 150 ions with an error margin of less than 0.3 % .
The electron 's charge was more carefully measured by the American physicists Robert Millikan and Harvey Fletcher in their oil - drop experiment of 1909 , the results of which were published in 1911 . This experiment used an electric field to prevent a charged droplet of oil from falling as a result of gravity . This device could measure the electric charge from as few as 1 -- 150 ions with an error margin of less than 0.3 % .