Question

In Millikan’s experiment, the oil droplets acquire one or more negative charges by combining with the negative charges that are produced from the ionization of air by X rays. By measuring the charges on the oil droplets, he calculated the charge on a single electron as −1.60×10−19 C. The charge on any negatively charged oil droplet is always a whole-number multiple of the fundamental charge of a single electron.If Millikan was measuring the charge on an oil droplet with 10 negatively charged electrons on it, what charge would he have measured on the droplet?

Answer 1

`-1.6\cdot 10^(-18)C`

Step-by-step explanation:

The charge of a single electron is:

`q=-1.6\cdot 10^(-19)C`

If the oil droplet has N electrons, the total charge of the droplet will be

`Q=Nq`

In this case, we have

N = 10

Therefore, the total charge on the droplet is

`Q=(10)(-1.6\cdot 10^(-19) C)=-1.6\cdot 10^(-18)C`