Robert Millikan

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American experimental physicist (1868–1953)

title: "Robert Millikan" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1868-births", "1953-deaths", "20th-century-american-physicists", "american-congregationalists", "american-experimental-physicists", "american-nobel-laureates", "american-optical-physicists", "american-spectroscopists", "asme-medal-recipients", "burials-at-forest-lawn-memorial-park-(glendale)", "california-institute-of-technology-faculty", "columbia-graduate-school-of-arts-and-sciences-alumni", "corresponding-members-of-the-russian-academy-of-sciences-(1917–1925)", "corresponding-members-of-the-ussr-academy-of-sciences", "fellows-of-the-american-academy-of-arts-and-sciences", "american-eugenicists", "ieee-edison-medal-recipients", "members-of-the-american-philosophical-society", "members-of-the-french-academy-of-sciences", "naval-consulting-board", "nobel-laureates-in-physics", "oberlin-college-alumni", "people-from-morrison,-illinois", "people-from-san-marino,-california", "presidents-of-the-american-association-for-the-advancement-of-science", "presidents-of-the-american-physical-society", "presidents-of-the-california-institute-of-technology", "presidents-of-the-international-union-of-pure-and-applied-physics", "proceedings-of-the-national-academy-of-sciences-of-the-united-states-of-america-editors", "recipients-of-franklin-medal", "recipients-of-the-matteucci-medal", "theistic-evolutionists", "university-of-chicago-faculty"] description: "American experimental physicist (1868–1953)" topic_path: "law" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Millikan" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American experimental physicist (1868–1953) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox officeholder"]

FieldValue
nameRobert Millikan
imageMillikan.jpg
captionMillikan in 1923
order1st
titleChairman of the Executive Council,
California Institute of Technology
term_start1921
term_end1945
predecessorOffice established
successorLee DuBridge
birth_nameRobert Andrews Millikan
birth_date
birth_placeMorrison, Illinois, US
death_date
death_placeSan Marino, California, US
resting_placeForest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
spouse
children{{Flat list
educationMaquoketa Community High School
alma_mater{{Indented plainlist
known_for{{Indented plainlist
awards{{Indented plainlist
module{{Infobox scientist
fields{{Flat list
work_institutions{{Indented plainlist
thesis_titleOn the polarization of light emitted from the surfaces of incandescent solids and liquids
thesis_urlhttps://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/1883118
thesis_year1895
doctoral_advisorOgden Rood
doctoral_students{{Collapsible list
signatureRobert Andrews Milliken signature.svg
::

::callout[type=note] Not to be confused with the Nobel laureate in Chemistry Robert S. Mulliken. ::

| name = Robert Millikan | image = Millikan.jpg | caption = Millikan in 1923 | order = 1st | title = Chairman of the Executive Council, California Institute of Technology | term_start = 1921 | term_end = 1945 | predecessor = Office established | successor = Lee DuBridge | birth_name = Robert Andrews Millikan | birth_date = | birth_place = Morrison, Illinois, US | death_date = | death_place = San Marino, California, US | resting_place = Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California | spouse = | children = {{Flat list|

Robert Andrews Millikan (March 22, 1868 – December 19, 1953) was an American experimental physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923 "for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect."

As Chairman of the Executive Council of Caltech (the school's governing body at the time) from 1921 to 1945, Millikan helped to turn the school into one of the leading research institutions in the United States. He also served on the board of trustees for Science Service, now known as Society for Science & the Public, from 1921 to 1953.

Biography

Robert Andrews Millikan was born on March 22, 1868, in Morrison, Illinois, the second son of The Rev. Silas Franklin Millikan and Mary Jane Andrews. He attended Maquoketa Community High School before entering Oberlin College in 1886, where he obtained a B.A. in 1891 and an M.A. in 1893. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1895 with a thesis on the polarization of light emitted from incandescent surfaces.

::quote At the close of my sophomore year [...] my Greek professor [...] asked me to teach the course in elementary physics in the preparatory department during the next year. To my reply that I did not know any physics at all, his answer was, "Anyone who can do well in my Greek can teach physics." "All right," said I, "you will have to take the consequences, but I will try and see what I can do with it." I at once purchased an Avery's Elements of Physics, and spent the greater part of my summer vacation of 1889 at home – trying to master the subject. [...] I doubt if I have ever taught better in my life than in my first course in physics in 1889. I was so intensely interested in keeping my knowledge ahead of that of the class that they may have caught some of my own interest and enthusiasm. {{cite book |title=The autobiography of Robert A. Millikan |last=Millikan|first=Robert Andrews |page=14 |publisher=Prentice-Hall |date=1980 |orig-year=reprint of original 1950 edition }} ::

Millikan's enthusiasm for education continued throughout his career, and he was the coauthor of a popular and influential series of introductory textbooks, which were ahead of their time in many ways. Compared to other books of the time, they treated the subject more in the way in which it was thought about by physicists. They also included many homework problems that asked conceptual questions, rather than simply requiring the student to plug numbers into a formula.

In 1895, Millikan travelled to Germany and spent a year at the Universities of Berlin and Göttingen. The following year, he returned to the United States to become an assistant at the University of Chicago. He was appointed Professor of Physics in 1910.

In 1917, solar astronomer George Ellery Hale convinced Millikan to begin spending several months each year at Throop College of Technology, a small academic institution in Pasadena, California, that Hale wished to transform into a major center for scientific research and education. In 1920, Throop College was renamed the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and the following year Millikan left the University of Chicago to become Director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics at Caltech, a position he held until his retirement in 1945. During this time, he also served as Chairman of the Executive Council of Caltech.

Millikan died on December 19, 1953, in San Marino, California, at the age of 85. He is interred in the "Court of Honor" at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Research

Oil drop experiment

Main article: Oil drop experiment

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Millikan’s_oil-drop_apparatus_1.jpg" caption="1909–1910}}."] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/Robert_A._Millikan_1924.png" caption="Millikan receives a check for over $40,000 for winning the Nobel Prize, 1924."] ::

In 1909, Millikan worked on an experiment in which he measured the charge of a single electron. J. J. Thomson had already discovered the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron. However, the actual charge and mass values were unknown. Therefore, if one of these two values were to be discovered, the other could easily be calculated. Millikan and his then graduate student, Harvey Fletcher, used the oil drop experiment to measure the charge of the electron (as well as the electron mass, and Avogadro constant, since their relation to the electron charge was known). | author = Millikan, R. A. | title = The isolation of an ion, a precision measurement of its charge, and the correction of Stokes's law | journal = Science | volume = 32 | number = 822 | pages = 436–448 | doi = 10.1126/science.32.822.436 | year = 1910 | pmid = 17743310 | bibcode = 1910Sci....32..436M | url = https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:MILpr11b | url-access = subscription

Millikan took sole credit in return for Fletcher claiming full authorship on a related result for his dissertation. Millikan went on to win the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics, in part for this work, and Fletcher kept the agreement a secret until his death. After a publication on his first results in 1910, contradictory observations by Felix Ehrenhaft started a controversy between the two physicists. After improving his setup, Millikan published his seminal study in 1913.

The elementary charge is one of the fundamental physical constants, and accurate knowledge of its value is of great importance. His experiment measured the force on tiny charged droplets of oil suspended against gravity between two metal electrodes. Knowing the electric field, the charge on the droplet could be determined. Repeating the experiment for many droplets, Millikan showed that the results could be explained as integer multiples of a common value (1.592 × 10−19 coulomb), which is the charge of a single electron. That this is somewhat lower than the modern value of 1.602 176 53(14) x 10−19 coulomb is probably due to Millikan's use of an inaccurate value for the viscosity of air.

Although at the time of Millikan's oil drop experiment, it was becoming clear that there exist such things as subatomic particles, not everyone was convinced. Experimenting with cathode rays in 1897, J. J. Thomson had discovered negatively charged "corpuscles", as he called them, with a charge-to-mass ratio 1840 times that of a hydrogen ion. Similar results had been found by George FitzGerald and Walter Kaufmann. Most of what was then known about electricity and magnetism could be explained on the basis that charge is a continuous variable. This in much the same way that many of the properties of light can be explained by treating it as a continuous wave rather than as a stream of photons.

The beauty of the oil drop experiment is that as well as allowing quite accurate determination of the fundamental unit of charge, Millikan's apparatus also provided a 'hands on' demonstration that charge is actually quantized. General Electric Company's Charles Steinmetz, who had previously thought that charge is a continuous variable, became convinced otherwise after working with Millikan's apparatus.

Data selection controversy

There is some controversy over selectivity in Millikan's use of results from his second experiment measuring the electron charge. This issue has been discussed by Allan Franklin, |last=Franklin |first=A. |title=Millikan's Oil-Drop Experiments |journal=The Chemical Educator |volume=2 |issue=1 |date=1997 |pages=1–14 |doi=10.1007/s00897970102a |s2cid=97609199 |url = https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/4014/1/Millikan.pdf |title = In defense of Robert Andrews Millikan |first = David |last = Goodstein |date = 2000 |work = Engineering and Science |publisher = California Institute of Technology |location = Pasadena, California

Photoelectric effect

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Millikan_and_Einstein_1932.png" caption="Millikan and [[Albert Einstein]] at Caltech, 1932."] ::

When Albert Einstein published his 1905 paper on the particle theory of light, Millikan was convinced that it had to be wrong, because of the vast body of evidence that had already shown that light was a wave. He undertook a decade-long experimental program to test Einstein's theory, which required building what he described as "a machine shop in vacuo" in order to prepare the very clean metal surface of the photoelectrode. His results, published in 1914, confirmed Einstein's predictions in every detail, |last1=Millikan |first1=R. |year=1914 |title=A Direct Determination of "h." |journal=Physical Review |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=73–75 |bibcode=1914PhRv....4R..73M |doi=10.1103/PhysRev.4.73.2 |url=https://authors.library.caltech.edu/42736/

Although Millikan's work formed some of the basis for modern particle physics, he was conservative in his opinions about 20th century developments in physics, as in the case of the photon theory. Another example is that his textbook, as late as the 1927 version, unambiguously states the existence of the ether, and mentions Einstein's theory of relativity only in a noncommittal note at the end of the caption under Einstein's portrait, stating as the last in a list of accomplishments that he was "author of the special theory of relativity in 1905 and of the general theory of relativity in 1914, both of which have had great success in explaining otherwise unexplained phenomena and in predicting new ones."

Millikan is also credited with measuring the value of the Planck constant by using photoelectric emission graphs of various metals. |last1=Millikan |first1=R. |year=1916 |title=A Direct Photoelectric Determination of Planck's "h" |journal=Physical Review |volume=7 |issue=3 |pages=355–388 |bibcode=1916PhRv....7..355M |doi=10.1103/PhysRev.7.355 |doi-access=free

Cosmic rays

At Caltech, most of Millikan's scientific research focused on the study of cosmic rays (a term he coined). In the 1930s, he entered into a debate with Arthur Compton over whether cosmic rays were composed of high-energy photons (Millikan's view) or charged particles (Compton's view). Millikan thought his cosmic ray photons were the "birth cries" of new atoms continually being created to counteract entropy and prevent the heat death of the universe. Compton was eventually proven right by the observation that cosmic rays are deflected by the Earth's magnetic field (hence must be charged particles).

Other work

Millikan was Vice Chairman of the National Research Council during World War I. During that time, he helped to develop anti-submarine and meteorological devices. During his wartime service, an investigation by Inspector General William T. Wood determined that Millikan had attempted to steal another inventor's design for a centrifugal gun in order to profit personally. Wood recommended termination of Millikan's army commission, but a subsequent investigation by Frank McIntyre, the executive assistant to the army chief of staff, exonerated Millikan. He received the Chinese Order of Jade in 1940. After the War, Millikan contributed to the works of the League of Nations' Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (from 1922, in replacement to George E. Hale, to 1931), with other prominent researchers (Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Hendrik Lorentz, etc.).

In the aftermath of the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, Millikan chaired the Joint Technical Committee on Earthquake Protection. They authored a report proposing means to minimize life and property loss in future earthquakes by advocating stricter building codes.

Westinghouse Time Capsules

In 1938, he wrote a short passage to be placed in the Westinghouse Time Capsules:

::quote At this moment, August 22, 1938, the principles of representative ballot government, such as are represented by the governments of the Anglo-Saxon, French, and Scandinavian countries, are in deadly conflict with the principles of despotism, which up to two centuries ago had controlled the destiny of man throughout practically the whole of recorded history. If the rational, scientific, progressive principles win out in this struggle there is a possibility of a warless, golden age ahead for mankind. If the reactionary principles of despotism triumph now and in the future, the future history of mankind will repeat the sad story of war and oppression as in the past. ::

Personal life

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Greta_Ervin_Millikan_1923.png" caption="Greta Millikan in 1923" alt="Black-and-white headshot of a woman wearing a hat draped with lace"] ::

In 1902, Millikan married Greta Irvin Blanchard (1876–1953), who pre-deceased him by 3 months. They had three sons: Clark, Glenn, and Max.

Millikan was a member of the organizing committee of the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, and in his private life was an enthusiastic tennis player.

A religious man and the son of a minister, in his later life, Millikan argued strongly for a complementary relationship between science and Christianity. He dealt with this in his Terry Lectures at Yale in 1926–27, published as Evolution in Science and Religion. He was a Christian theist and proponent of theistic evolution.

A more controversial belief of his was eugenics. Millikan was one of the initial trustees of the Human Betterment Foundation and praised San Marino, California for being "the westernmost outpost of Nordic civilization ... [with] a population which is twice as Anglo-Saxon as that existing in New York, Chicago, or any of the great cities of this country." In 1936, Millikan advised the president of Duke University in the then-racial segregated southern United States against recruiting a female physicist and argued that it would be better to hire young men.

Recognition

Awards

::data[format=table]

YearOrganizationAwardCitation
1913US National Academy of SciencesComstock Prize in Physics
1922US AIEEAIEE Edison Medal"For his experimental work in electrical science."
1923Sweden Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesNobel Prize in Physics"For his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect."
1923UK Royal SocietyHughes Medal"For his determination of the electronic charge and of other physical constants."
1925Kingdom of Italy Accademia dei XLMatteucci Medal
1926US ASMEASME Medal
1937US Franklin InstituteFranklin Medal"For the measurement of the charge on an electron and description of Planck's constant, and for the study of cosmic radiation."
1940US AAPTOersted Medal
::

Memberships

::data[format=table]

YearOrganizationType
1914US American Philosophical SocietyMember
1914US American Academy of Arts and SciencesMember
1915US National Academy of SciencesMember
1950US Optical Society of AmericaHonorary Member
::

National awards

::data[format=table]

YearHead of stateAward
1949US Harry S. TrumanMedal for Merit
::

Legacy

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/MillikanBuilding2010.jpg" caption="The former Millikan Library at Caltech in 2010 (renamed Caltech Hall in 2021)."] ::

On January 26, 1982, Millikan was honored by the United States Postal Service with a 37¢ Great Americans series (1980–2000) postage stamp.

Tektronix named a street on their Portland, Oregon, campus after Millikan with the Millikan Way (MAX station) of Portland's MAX Blue Line named after the street.

Name removal from college campuses

During the mid to late 20th century, several colleges named buildings, physical features, awards, and professorships after Millikan. In 1958, Pomona College named a science building Millikan Laboratory in honor of Millikan. After reviewing Millikan's association with the eugenics movement, the college administration voted in October 2020 to rename the building as the Ms. Mary Estella Seaver and Mr. Carlton Seaver Laboratory.

On the Caltech campus, several physical features, rooms, awards, and a professorship were named in honor of Millikan, including the Millikan Library, which was completed in 1966. In January 2021, on account of Millikan's affiliation with the Human Betterment Foundation, the Caltech Board of Trustees authorized removal of Millikan's name (and the names of five other historical figures affiliated with the Foundation), from campus buildings. The Robert A. Millikan Library has been renamed Caltech Hall. In November 2021, the Robert A. Millikan Professorship was renamed the Judge Shirley Hufstedler Professorship.

This removal was opposed by mathematician Thomas C. Hales, who argued that "Millikan's beliefs fell within acceptable scientific norms of his day". He further criticized the Committee on Naming and Recognition (CNR) report for "failing to meet the minimal standards of accuracy and scholarship that are expected of official documents issued by one of the world's great scientific institutions", saying that it should be retracted, and called for Caltech to "restore Robert Andrews Millikan to a place of honor."

Possible name removal from secondary schools during the 21st century

In November 2020, Millikan Middle School (formerly Millikan Junior High School) in the suburban Los Angeles neighborhood of Sherman Oaks started the process of renaming their school. In February 2022, the Board of Education for the Los Angeles Unified School District voted unanimously to rename the school in honor of musician Louis Armstrong.

In August 2020, the Long Beach Unified School District established a committee that would examine the need for renaming of their Robert A. Millikan High School. An October 2023 attempt to get the school board to restart the stalled renaming process failed. , Long Beach remains the only city that still has an educational institution named in honor of Millikan.

Name removal from awards

In the spring of 2021, the American Association of Physics Teachers voted unanimously to remove Millikan's name from the Robert A. Millikan award, which honors "notable and intellectually creative contributions to the teaching of physics." A few months later, AAPT announced that the award would be renamed in honor of University of Washington professor of physics Lillian C. McDermott who died the previous year.

Famous statements

"If Kevin Harding's equation and Aston's curve are even roughly correct, as I'm sure they are, for Dr. Cameron and I have computed with their aid the maximum energy evolved in radioactive change and found it to check well with observation, then this supposition of an energy evolution through the disintegration of the common elements is from the one point of view a childish Utopian dream, and from the other a foolish bugaboo."

"No more earnest seekers after truth, no intellectuals of more penetrating vision can be found anywhere at any time than these, and yet every one of them has been a devout and professed follower of religion."

Selected works

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Millikan,Robert_Andrews–_Laboratory_course_in_physics_for_secondary_schools,1906–_BEIC_10996113.jpg" caption="''Laboratory course in physics for secondary schools'', 1906"] ::

  • Millikan, Robert Andrews (1917). The Electron: Its Isolation and Measurements and the Determination of Some of its Properties. The University of Chicago Press.
  • Millikan, Robert Andrews (1950). The Autobiography of Robert Millikan, New York: Prentice-Hall

References

Citations

Sources

References

  1. "Physics Tree - Robert A. Millikan".
  2. "Nobel Prize in Physics 1923". [[Nobel Foundation]].
  3. "Archives : Fast Facts About Caltech History".
  4. "Robert A. Millikan – Biographical". [[Nobel Foundation]].
  5. Millikan, Robert Andrews. (1895). "On the polarization of light emitted from the surfaces of incandescent solids and liquids".
  6. The books, coauthored with [[Henry Gale (astrophysicist). Henry Gordon Gale]], were ''A First Course in Physics'' (1906), ''Practical Physics'' (1920), ''Elements of Physics'' (1927), and ''New Elementary Physics'' (1936).
  7. "Robert Andrews Millikan".
  8. (December 20, 1953). "Dr. Millikan of Caltech Dies at 85: Famous Physicist Known as Leader in Many Fields". [[Los Angeles Times]].
  9. (December 20, 1953). "Robert A. Millikan, Nobel Prize Physicist". [[Washington Post]].
  10. (December 20, 1953). "Dr. Millikan, Nobel Prize Physicist, Dies: Scientist, 85, Known for Isolating Electron". [[Chicago Daily Tribune]].
  11. (December 23, 1953). "Solemn Tribute Paid to Dr. Robert Millikan: Friends and Admirers File Past Bier; Immortalization Services Set Today". [[Los Angeles Times]].
  12. David Goodstein. (January 2001). "In defense of Robert Andrews Millikan". American Scientist.
  13. Harvey Fletcher. (June 1982). "My Work with Millikan on the Oil-drop Experiment". Physics Today.
  14. (1910). "A new modification of the cloud method of determining the elementary electrical charge and the most probable value of that charge". Phil. Mag..
  15. (1910). "Über die Kleinsten Messbaren Elektrizitätsmengen". Phys. Z..
  16. (1913). "On the Elementary Electric charge and the Avogadro Constant". Physical Review.
  17. [http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm Feynman, Richard, "Cargo Cult Science"] {{Webarchive. link. (February 23, 2011 (adapted from 1974 [https://www.caltech.edu/ California Institute of Technology] commencement address), ''[http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/home.htm Donald Simanek's Pages] {{Webarchive). link. (September 2, 2011 '', [http://www.lhup.edu/ Lock Haven University], rev. August 2008.)
  18. (1997). ""Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!": adventures of a curious character". W. W. Norton & Company.
  19. [https://books.google.com/books?id=GfmR0mHxeZkC&pg=PA96 Anton Z. Capri, "Quips, quotes, and quanta: an anecdotal history of physics"] (World Scientific 2007) p.96
  20. (2014). "George Owen Squier: U.S. Army Major General, Inventor, Aviation Pioneer, Founder of Muzak". McFarland & Co..
  21. (1940). "Order of Jade (China)".
  22. Grandjean, Martin. (2018). "Les réseaux de la coopération intellectuelle. La Société des Nations comme actrice des échanges scientifiques et culturels dans l'entre-deux-guerres".
  23. (June 7, 1933). "Long Beach Earthquake and Protection Against Future Earthquakes – Summary of Report by Joint Technical Committee on Earthquake Protection, Dr. Robert A. Millikan, Chairman".
  24. [https://archive.org/details/timecapsulecups00westrich ''The Time Capsule'']. Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company. September 23, 1938. p. 46.
  25. (October 11, 1953). "Mrs. Millikan, 77, Dies in San Marino". [[Los Angeles Times]].
  26. (October 13, 1953). "Dr. Millikan, ill, Misses Funeral Rites for Wife". [[Los Angeles Times]].
  27. (1933). "The Games of the Xth Olympiad, Los Angeles 1932 Official Report". Xth Olympiade Committee of the Games of Los Angeles, U.S.A. 1932, Ltd..
  28. "[[Who's Who in America]] 1928–1929".
  29. Hunter, Preston. (September 26, 2005). "The Religious Affiliation of Physicist Robert Andrews Millikan". Adherents.com.
  30. "Robert A. Millikan Biographical". [[The Nobel Foundation]].
  31. (June 4, 1923). "Medicine: Science Serves God".
  32. Millikan, Robert Andrews. (1973). "Evolution in Science and Religion". Kennikat Press.
  33. Long, Edward Le Roy. (1952). "Religious Beliefs of American Scientists". Westminster Press.
  34. Waxman, Sharon. (March 16, 2000). "Judgment At Pasadena". [[Washington Post]].
  35. Subbaraman, Nidhi. (November 10, 2021). "Caltech confronted its racist past. Here's what happened". [[Nature (journal).
  36. "Comstock Prize in Physics".
  37. "IEEE Edison Medal Recipients". [[IEEE]].
  38. "Hughes Medal".
  39. "Medaglie".
  40. "ASME Medal". [[ASME]].
  41. (January 15, 2014). "Robert Andrews Millikan". [[Franklin Institute]].
  42. "Oersted Medal". [[American Association of Physics Teachers.
  43. "APS Member History".
  44. "Robert Andrews Millikan".
  45. "Robert A. Millikan".
  46. "Robert A. Millikan".
  47. (1949-03-22). "Millikan, son, aide get medals of merit". [[New York Times]].
  48. "37c Robert Millikan single". [[National Postal Museum]].
  49. "Millikan". vintageTEK Museum.
  50. (October 6, 2020). "Pomona to rename Millikan Laboratory, citing Robert A. Millikan's eugenics promotion". [[The Student Life]].
  51. Rosenbaum, Thomas F.. "A Statement from the President". California Institute of Technology.
  52. Hiltzik, Michael. (January 15, 2021). "Confronting a racist past, Caltech will excise names of eugenics backers from campus". [[Los Angeles Times]].
  53. (November 8, 2021). "Caltech Approves New Names for Campus Assets and Honors". [[California Institute of Technology]].
  54. Hales, Thomas. (February 19, 2024). "Robert Millikan, Japanese Internment, and Eugenics". European Physical Journal H.
  55. "Timeline for School Renaming Process". Millikan Middle School.
  56. Vizcarra, Claudia. (February 8, 2022). "Millikan Middle School is renamed Louis D. Amstrong Middle School". Scott M. Schmerelson, LAUSD Board member.
  57. Guardabascio, Mike. (August 6, 2020). "After renewed cry for change, LBUSD reconvenes committee to examine school names". Long Beach Post.
  58. Rosenfeld, David. (July 12, 2020). "Push On To Rename Schools, Including In Long Beach". Grunion.
  59. Kazenoff, Tess. (October 23, 2023). "LBUSD teacher calls for renewed push to rename schools honoring racist figures". Long Beach Post.
  60. (May 2021). "Nominations for Renaming the Robert A. Millikan Medal". [[American Association of Physics Teachers]].
  61. (September 2021). "Lillian McDermott Medal". [[American Association of Physics Teachers]].
  62. Millikan, Robert Andrews. (1930). "Science and the New Civilization". Charles Scribner's and Sons.
  63. Millikan Robert, A.. (1927). "A Scientist Confesses His Faith". Christian Century.

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