Physical Experiment Ⅱ

Prelab Report

Lab Title: The Millikan Oil Drop Experiment

Your Chinese Name: 邱杨

UESTC ID: 2022360903034

Instructor: Fu Hao

Teaching Assistant: Wu Yanyi

Date Performed: October 25th, 2023

Score:
UESTC Student Number: 2022360903034 Email: 2022360903034@std.uestc.edu.cn
Date: 2023/10/25

Score
Answers to Questions (20 points)

Q1. When the oil droplet is stationary within the electrostatic field, the
gravitational force, the buoyant force exerted by the air, and the electric field
force act on it. When the field is removed, and the droplet reaches its terminal
speed, the gravitational force, the buoyant force, and the viscous resistance (a
kind of frictional force) exerted by air would be acting on it.

Q2. Since the density of the air is about one-thousandth of that of oil, we can
ignore the buoyant force. Thus, when the droplet floats stationarily, we have:
𝑼
𝒎 × 𝒈 = 𝒒 × 𝑬, q = n×e, E = 𝒅

𝑼
𝒎×𝒈= 𝒏×𝒆×𝒅

𝒎×𝒈×𝒅 𝟑.𝟑×𝟏𝟎−𝟏𝟓 ×𝟗.𝟖×𝟎.𝟗𝟓×𝟏𝟎−𝟐

𝒏= = =5.6
𝒆×𝑼 𝟏.𝟔×𝟏𝟎−𝟏𝟗 ×𝟑𝟒𝟎
Therefore, we might have 6 extra electrons on the droplet.

Q3. Stokes' law is a physics law founded by George Gabriel Stokes in 1851,
which is applied to the frictional force exerted on spherical objects in a viscous
fluid such as the viscous resistance exerted on the oil droplet in the air.
Its formula is 𝑭𝒗 = 𝟔𝝅𝒓𝞰𝒗, where r is the radius of the spherical object, 𝞰 is
the coefficient of viscosity of the fluid, and v is the terminal velocity of the object.
In this experiment, since we cannot directly measure the droplet's mass, we
use this law and the measured terminal velocity to get the radius of the oil
droplet whose density is already known such that we can calculate the charge
carried on it.