Millikan, Robert

MILLIKAN

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 5/9/2007 at 15:19:55

World-Famed Scientist Once Resided Here.
One of Maquoketa's most illustrious sons is dead. He is Robert A. Millikan, 85, internationally famous Nobel prize-winning physicist(Nobel prize in physics in 1923 for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and the photoelectric effect),the dean of American physicists, Dr. Millikan died Saturday in a San Marino nursing home after an extended illness. A former Maquoketan, the world-famous scientist, who at his death held 25 honorary degrees from various universities, seven of them foreign, moved with his family to Maquoketa in 1875. His father, the Rev. Silas Franklin Millikan, served the First Congregational Church as pastor.
Dr. Millikan attended the local high school for eleven years and graduated in 1885 from Maquoketa high school. At Cal Tech, one of the nation's leading schools of science, he served as chairman of the executive council from 1921 until he retired to continue his scientific research and writing in 1946. At the time of his death he was director of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics and a trustee of the Huntington library.
The eminent physicist, who merits twice as much space in "Who's Who" as Dr. Albert Einstein, was born Mar. 22, 1868, in Morrison, Ill., the son of the Rev. Silas F. and Mary Jane Andrews Millikan. He was one of six children. He received his bachelor's degree from Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, in 1891, and his doctor of philosophy degree from Columbia University in 1895. He also studied at the German universities at Gottingham, Berlin and Jonas.
Dr. Millikan's wife, the former Greta Blanchard, died last Oct. 10th. They were married in 1902. Ill health prevented the scientist from attending his wife's last rites.
During World War II, the prominent physicist was in charge of Cal Tech's war services and was a member of the National Defense Research committee, and of the missile committee of the U.S. navy's bureau of ordnance. He was the author of 18 books and thousands of papers. In 1949, former President Harry S. Truman presented Millikan with the Presidential Medal for Merit "for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the United States in World War II." He is survived by two sons and seven grandchildren. One son, Clark H. Millikan, is professor of aeronautics and director of the Guggenheim aeronautical laboratory at Cal Tech. Another son, Max F., is a professor of economics and director of the center for international studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A third son, Glenn, died in 1947 in a mountain-climbing mishap. At the time of his death, he was head of the department of physiology in the Medical School at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.
(Maquoketa Community Press, December 22, 1953.)