Robert Millikan

"There is no likelihood that man can ever tap the power of the atom."

Time Period: 1868 - 1953

Background: American physicist who helped further the understanding of the electron. He was appointed Fellow in Physics at Columbia University, where he excelled after one year, moved to California Institute of Technology afterwards, and then taught at the Universities of Berlin and Goettingen, where he remained a professor until he retained in 1921.

Belief: Millikan successfully determined, through an oil-drop experiment, the standard charge of an electron. He was able to conclude that the value of the charge on an electron was a discrete constant rather than a statistical average. For this discovery, as well as his work on the photoelectric effect, after Einstein, he received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1923.

Contribution: Millikan was undoubtedly successful at helping the understanding of atomic theory. As we are now rapidly reaching the mid-twentieth century, the ideas have been set and developed.