Today (March 22, 1868) is the
birthday of Robert Millikan, the Nobel Prize-winning American physicist who
conducted research on the effect of photovoltaics.
Robert A. Millikan was born on March 22, 1868, in Morrison, Illinois, USA. His father was a clergyman in the church. Millikan attended McCoy High School in Iowa. After school, he worked for a while on the court. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1891. Greek and mathematics were his favourite subjects. He received his master's degree in physics in 1893. He received his doctorate in 1895 from Columbia University for further research on luminosity sites. He was the first person to receive a doctorate in this field of
Millikan in 1914 took experimental validation of the equation introduced by Albert Einstein in 1905 to describe the photovoltaic effect with similar efficiency. He used the same research to get an accurate value of Planck's constant. He left the University of Millikan Chicago in 1921 and became the director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California. Physicist Victor Hess did a great deal of research there about the radiation he discovered coming from space. Millikan proved that this radiation actually had an extraterrestrial origin, and he named it "cosmic rays".
He conducted many types of research in electricity, optics and molecular physics and published essential theories. He was a professor at the University of Chicago from 1910 to 1921. He was involved in writing textbooks and improving the methods of teaching simple physics. He has authored numerous books alone and in collaboration with other experts. His findings and claims regarding the photovoltaic effect were consistently useful for various researches. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923 for his study of the electron charge and photovoltaic effect of oil droplet testing.
He served as vice president of the National Research Institute of the United States during World War II. He was instrumental in the development of submarines and astronomical instruments. He has held key positions in several educational institutions and physics research centres. Nearly 25 universities have awarded him honorary doctorates. Not only that, he has received numerous awards and prizes from organizations from around the world. Not only a scientist but also a great theologian and philosopher, Millikan was involved in biological research until his death. He passed away on December 19, 1953, at the age of 85 in San Marino, California, USA. Many schools and public places in the United States are named after him.
Source By: Wikipedia
Information: Ramesh, Assistant Professor of Physics, Nehru Memorial College, Puthanampatti, Trichy.
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