Abstract

The oil drop experiment that brought Robert A. Millikan the Nobel Prize in 1923 has given rise to two controversial topics. One is the allegation that Millikan manipulated data that did not conform to his assumptions, and the other is that he did not include the name of his PhD student, Harvey Fletcher, in the Nobel Prize-awarded paper even though Fletcher had made essential contributions to the experiment. This article focuses on the second controversy. It seems that Millikan, as a scientist chasing the award and reputation for a long time, wanted to appropriate the work that he predicted would bring him the reputation. However, the discrepancies between what Fletcher wrote in his posthumously published autobiography and Millikan’s account in his Autobiography cast doubt on that that the oil drop experiment was merely Millikan’s. The two scientists’ narratives about the experimentation process differ in two points. The first is about whose idea it was to use oil instead of water in the experiment. The second is about the date the experimental setup was ordered. When these points and Fletcher’s additional information about the experiment process are considered together with his insistence on the posthumous publication of his autobiography, the oil drop experiment must be referred to as the “Millikan-Fletcher experiment” to give Fletcher the credit he deserves.