gwiyomi17 Posted May 6, 2014 Share Posted May 6, 2014 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted May 7, 2014 Share Posted May 7, 2014 IIRC the answer is no; the terminal velocity will depend on the drop size, because drag depends on surface area. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiot Posted May 7, 2014 Share Posted May 7, 2014 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 The value of this basic unit is then averaged from all the individual calculations (Millikan originally made thousands). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwiyomi17 Posted May 10, 2014 Author Share Posted May 10, 2014 alright thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now