41
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Timeline of measurements of the electron's charge
If anyone's still reading this thread, here's a few more data points that appear to back Feynmann's interpretation.
Erik Bäcklin, Nature vol 123, no. 3098, p. 409 (1929): $1.59875 \cdot 10^{-19} \pm ...
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23
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Is Millikan's famous oil drop experiment a fraud?
Note: I present here some information defending Millikan, but please note that I do not necessarily agree with the article it came from.
From the feature article "In Defense of Robert Andrews ...
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14
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How did J. J. Thomson establish the particle nature of the electron?
The idea that matter was made up of "primordial" particles, and currents in metals consisted of them was well established by then. Stoney suggested the name "electron" in 1891, and Lorentz's theory of ...
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9
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What was the longest delay between prediction and confirmation of a theory?
There is inherent vagueness in dating "predictions" and "confirmations" in many cases. For instance, who predicted heliocentrism? Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, perhaps Aristarchus? When was it confirmed?...
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Could scientists of Newton's time have explored the limits of his laws of motion?
At the time of Newton, the scientists could NOT detect any deviation of the Newton's laws from reality. As we know now, the only visible effect of this deviation in the Solar system is the anomalous ...
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9
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How did Stern or Gerlach, of Stern-Gerlach experiment, create individual silver atoms? How were they accelerated?
Atomic spectroscopy was very advanced 100 years ago (1920s) and we must appreciate their intelligence. If a metal like silver is being heated to the extent of boiling in high vacuum, all you get is ...
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8
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What did it historically mean in physics for something to "exist"?
To not be measured is not to have any behavior. No dynamic is induced on any other system in the universe by this object (Rosen 1978).
Objects without behavior do not exist. Their behavior is that ...
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8
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Does anyone know of any examples of the Magnus effect in a real battle?
I am afraid nobody noticed it, because nobody could have noticed it. A deviation is only a deviation when one has something that it is a deviation from. To "notice" the Magnus effect one has to ...
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8
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Significance of Higgs model used in Glashow-Salam-Weinberg theory
This is precisely why this question belongs to HSM.SE with both feet! Your vision of what happened is deeply misleading, possibly requiring time travel. Recall the GWS 79 prize citation:
"for ...
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8
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Have there been instances in physics where different scientists have interpreted the same data differently?
The comments correctly say that this happens all the time. For a recent example, you can see my answer to: Can a highly-cited published paper have this type of error?
I will explain here some details ...
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7
votes
Who determined the temperature of the Sun first?
As is often the case, nobody was first, but both early and modern estimates of the surface temperature are based on comparisons to the black body radiation, the modern value is about 5800 K. The solar ...
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7
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What was the longest delay between prediction and confirmation of a theory?
I think Guido makes a good point in a comment that the analogue in math would be proving an old conjecture, and for this there are many examples that were settled after over 100 years. Besides Fermat'...
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7
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Who was first to observe or detect photons in the double slit experiment, and how did they do that?
To the contrary, Young's point was to disprove the then dominant Newton's corpuscular theory of light by demonstrating light's wave properties, see How did Young perform his double slit experiment? ...
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How did Galileo know that objects rolling down a ramp was an accurate model for free fall?
From: Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences (Italian: Discorsi e Dimostrazioni Matematiche Intorno a Due Nuove Scienze), published in 1638.
See: Engl.transaltion by ...
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7
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Who really discovered/invented the Hooke's law?
Proportionality law for elastic forces is one discovery at which Hooke did arrive first. He describes it in De Potentia Restitutiva (1678):
”The Power of any Spring is in the same proportion with ...
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7
votes
How did Henry Cavendish deduce the inverse square law in electrostatics from his experiment in 1772?
Newton proved that if the attraction obeys the inverse square law, then the force inside a uniformly charged sphere is zero. It follows from the description that you give that Cavendish used the ...
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7
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When was the geometric structure of a water molecule discovered?
Császára et al. J. Chem. Phys. 122, 214305 (2005) has a nice table of determination of the bond angle of water per year (missing probably Linus Pauling first predicting 90° from approximations in ...
- 2,678
6
votes
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Which physicist defended the Superconducting Super Collider?
Fermilab director R. R. Wilson’s Congressional Testimony (April 17, 1969, p. 113):
SENATOR PASTORE. Is there anything connected in the hopes of this accelerator that in any way involves the security ...
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6
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Why is the Michelson–Morley experiment so much more famous than its rivals?
Because it was the most accurate. The use of interferometers to measure length deviations eliminated the concern that the ether wind didn't register because the instruments were too blunt, or because ...
- 73.2k
6
votes
How was the idea of observation error introduced?
Astronomers had to deal with experimental errors to parametrize their geometric models at least as early as Hipparchus, and possibly earlier. There are some techniques and ad hoc methods that can be ...
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6
votes
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How did Newton prove his third law of motion?
It was not "the experiment". First, Newton considered "his" laws to be "common knowledge" already "abundantly" confirmed and accepted by experts (he names ...
- 73.2k
6
votes
Significance of Higgs model used in Glashow-Salam-Weinberg theory
It is called verification from experimental results.
The GSW theories fitted mathematically the observed particle zoo symmetries and explained the approximate symmetries seen in the data.
The Higgs ...
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5
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How were atomic weights originally measured?
Do you know about Lomonosov's and Gay Lussac's contribution in understanding of chemical reactions and Avogadro's contribution?
These three chemists contributed to a great extent to the understanding ...
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5
votes
High voltage / current sources in 19th century cathode ray experiments
In order to obtain a nonpulsating power source some early investigators used Wimshurst or similar static electricity generators, or batteries of many small storage cells.
(The discovery of the ...
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5
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How did Henry Cavendish deduce the inverse square law in electrostatics from his experiment in 1772?
Alexandre Eremenko's answer is great, but I figure the page could benefit from an explanation of the method in general.
Cavendish's Experiment
The question Cavendish was facing was this: Given that ...
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5
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What was this experiment tainted by the observer effect?
This is the story of the "discovery" of "N Rays", as described in a Wikipedia article. The gist of the story told there is as follows:
In 1903 the physicist Prosper-René Blondlot (1849 – 1930) ...
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5
votes
Did Ptolemy and other Greek scientists actually measure the distance to the Sun?
No, they did not. Several methods were proposed but they do not give "correct" distances. Of course, all depends on the exact meaning of the word "measure" and "correct". But their estimates were ...
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5
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Do Nobel prizes tend to go to theorists or experimenters?
Statistically, experimenters are typically favored. One reason is that theories are only Nobelized when confirmed, and that may take too long for getting the prize. Another is that new experimental ...
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5
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Why is it said that Marie Curie died due to her work but the same isn't said for Fermi?
Is it simply that the causation between the work and the disease is more clear in the case of Curie but not Fermi?
Marie Curie died of Aplastic anemia which was most likely due to exposure to ...
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