Re: milli-fletcher ?

[brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>]

At 10:45 12/6/97 EST, Thomas wrote:
> ... Millikan's famous oil-drop experiment
> ... a long sequence of verifications were made as is proper.   The
> values for q* grew almost monotonically to the present accepted value. 

> Each successive measurement resulted in a higher value of q*, but no one
> wanted to err radically, so each observer cooked his data to get more
> in line with Millikan after which the next hero of science felt better
> about his even higher result than he would have if no one had *ever*
> reported a result higher than Millikan's.
> ...
> Tom
It's hard to discount Millikan's effort when he was relying on Stokes
which can founder at very small spherical diameters or kinematic 
theory which leads one to expect gas viscosity to increase as the root 
of abs. temperature (which founders for some real gases and mixtures 
like air.) 
Brian
brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK