Millikan Oil Drop Quick Question

[gwiyomi17]

In millikan oil drop experiment, is terminal velocity same for all the drops?

 

I am doing the experiment and i got different velocities for the drop, should i calculate for the average velocity?

 

I need it to calculate for the charge.

[swansont]

IIRC the answer is no; the terminal velocity will depend on the drop size, because drag depends on surface area.

[studiot]

 

In millikan oil drop experiment, is terminal velocity same for all the drops?

 

No.

 

In the Millikan experiment you make two measurements on each drop individually.

 

Calculations are then performed on each drop individually.

 

You measure the terminal velocity (by timing its passage past a scale) without any applied electric field.

 

Then you measure it with the field applied, or you measure the field to halt the drop falling.

 

The first measurement is to determine the radius of the drop.

 

The second is to determine the charge on the drop.

 

Note that in the experiment the drop size can vary continuously over a range of values.

 

It is only the charge that turns out to be multiples of one basic unit.

 

The value of this basic unit is then averaged from all the individual calculations (Millikan originally made thousands).

[gwiyomi17]

alright thanks