SR 110 (LSB 6211XS (4) 87)

SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 110

BY  BOWMAN

A Resolution celebrating the 150th birthday of Robert A. Millikan by recognizing his significant contributions to the field of physics.

   WHEREAS, Dr. Millikan was born on March 22, 1868, in Morrison, Illinois; and
   WHEREAS, Dr. Millikan’s family moved to McGregor, Iowa, in 1873 and Maquoketa, Iowa, in 1875; and
   WHEREAS, Dr. Millikan graduated from Maquoketa High School in 1885; and
   WHEREAS, Dr. Millikan considered growing up in Maquoketa to play a major role in his life, stating in his autobiography, “I regarded Maquoketa as pretty nearly an ideal town in which to be brought up”; and
   WHEREAS, Dr. Millikan went on to study physics at Columbia University and the Universities of Berlin and Gottingen in Germany; and
   WHEREAS, Dr. Millikan’s experiments led to many important discoveries in the fields of electromagnetism and particle physics, including accurately determining the charge carried by an electron and proving that quantity to be constant, and verifying Albert Einstein’s photoelectric equation while making the first direct photoelectric determination of Max Planck’s constant “h”; and
   WHEREAS, Dr. Millikan won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923 “for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect”; NOW THEREFORE,

   BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE, That the Senate commemorates the 150th birthday of Robert A. Millikan by celebrating his international recognition in the scientific community and the historical importance of his professional work.