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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Remaking a classic: a landmark measurement of the electron’s charge goes visual

Scientists adapt a renowned experiment to make it visible with the naked eye.
Visibly quantized steps of a levitated droplet as it gains electrons

An oil droplet levitates as it gains first one electron (second panel from left), and then one, four and six more. A ruler on the right measures the displacement. Credit: J. T. Marmolejo et al./Sci. Rep. (CC BY 4.0)

In the early twentieth century, the physicist Robert Millikan used a microscope to observe the motion of falling oil droplets exposed to an electric field — an iconic experiment that helped to pin down the value of the electron’s charge. It also showed that charge is packaged in discrete units, and that an object’s charge depends on the number of electrons it has.

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Nature 594, 11 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01414-z

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