After Thomson discovered the existence of electrons in 1897, people made many attempts to determine its properties accurately. Thomson also measured the specific charge (charge-to-mass ratio) of this elementary particle, and confirmed that this ratio is unique.
In 19 13, Millikan got the value of the electron charge: e = (4.774 0.009) ×10-10 ESU, thus the existence of the meta-charge was confirmed experimentally. The accurate value he measured finally ended the debate about electron dispersion, which made the calculation of many physical constants obtain high accuracy.
Many scientists have done a lot of experiments to measure the charge of electrons. The exact value of electron charge was first measured by American scientist Millikan in 19 17.
Millikan measured elementary charge E on the basis of previous work. He made hundreds of measurements and stared at every drop of oil for hours, showing the degree of hard work. Millikan's process of accurately measuring elementary charge E through oil drop experiment,
Extended data
From the discovery of charge to the real understanding of charge, human beings have experienced about 2000 years of exploration. The initial discovery was simple, coming from electrostatic phenomena. Static electricity has always existed in nature.
For Thales, the phenomenon of static electricity is not so simple. He found that amber can attract objects as light as feathers after being rubbed by fur. This is actually a static phenomenon, but Thales didn't know it at the time. He thinks amber has some mysterious power.
It was not until the 6th century A.D./Kloc-that william Gilbert, a British court doctor, discovered that amber was not the only substance that could generate static electricity through friction, and other objects also had this phenomenon, which was different from the phenomenon that magnets attracted iron.
According to this phenomenon, Dr. Gilbert first coined the word "electricus", which means similar to amber in Greek and refers to the nature of attraction of small objects after friction. Later, the word "electricity" appeared, which is what we call "electricity". From amber to the discovery of electricity, mankind has experienced more than two thousand years of exploration.
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