Why was Millikan's discovery important?

Answer 1

Millikan performed the oil drop experiment where he sprayed a very fine mist of oil and manipulated the falling rate of the oil using x-rays. By doing this, he could measure the electron's charge, a particle previously discovered in the cathode ray tube experiment which effectively determined the mass to charge ratio. Millikan calculated the charge of an electron to be -1.602x10-19 columbs. Therefore, the mass must be 9.109x1031 kg. Since the electron was found to have a negative charge, the implication existed that there must be a positive charge located somewhere in the atom since atoms are naturally neutrally charged.

Answer 2

Millikan's discovery of the charge of an electron was important because it provided a precise value for the fundamental unit of electric charge. This laid the foundation for understanding the nature of electricity and paved the way for further advancements in physics and technology.