Editing Oil drop experiment (section)

==Millikan's experiment as an example of psychological effects in scientific methodology==
{{See also|Confirmation bias#Science and scientific research}}

[[File:Electron charge measurements 1913-1951.png|thumb|A scatter plot of electron charge measurements as suggested by Feynman, using papers published from 1913–1951]]

In a [[commencement address]] given at the [[California Institute of Technology]] (Caltech) in 1974 (and reprinted in ''[[Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!]]'' in 1985 as well as in ''[[The Pleasure of Finding Things Out]]'' in 1999), physicist [[Richard Feynman]] noted:<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/cargocul.htm |title=Cargo Cult Science |publisher=California Institute of Technology |access-date=22 February 2018 |archive-date=17 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417060350/https://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/cargocul.htm |url-status=dead }} (adapted from the 1974 [https://www.caltech.edu/ California Institute of Technology] commencement address), ''[http://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/home.htm Donald Simanek's Pages] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210605154712/http://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/home.htm |date=2021-06-05 }}'', [http://www.lockhaven.edu/ Lock Haven University], rev. December 2017.</ref><ref name="FeynmanLeighton1997">{{cite book|last1=Feynman|first1=Richard Phillips|last2=Leighton|first2=Ralph|last3=Hutchings|first3=Edward|title="Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!": adventures of a curious character|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7papZR4oVssC&pg=PA342|access-date=10 July 2010|date=1997-04-01|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|location=New York|isbn=978-0-393-31604-9|page=342}}</ref>

{{blockquote|
We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of—this history—because it's apparent that people did things like this: When they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong—and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that ...}}