Most chemistry and physics textbooks consider the oil drop experiment to be a simple, classic, and beautiful experiment, in
which Robert A. Millikan (1868–1953) by an exact experimental technique determined the elementary electrical charge. Polanyi
(1964) has emphasized the degree to which established knowledge in textbooks departs from the events associated with the original
discovery:
Yet as we pursue scientific discoveries through their consecutive publication on their way to the textbooks, which eventually
assures their reception as part of established knowledge by successive generations of students, and through these by the general
public, we observe that the intellectual passions aroused by them appear gradually toned down to a faint echo of their discoverer's
first excitement at the moment of Illumination. … A transition takes place here from a heuristic act to the routine teaching
and learning of its results, and eventually to the mere holding of these as known and true, in the course of which the personal
participation of the knower is altogether transformed. (pp. 171–172)
Analyses of chemistry and physics textbooks shows that Polanyi (1964) had indeed foreseen the dilemma with much acumen (Matthews,
1994; Niaz, 2000b; Rodríguez & Niaz, 2004c). A historical reconstruction of the events that led to the determination of the
elementary electrical charge (e) shows the controversial nature of the oil drop experiment then (1910–1925) and that the experiment
is difficult to perform even today (Jones, 1995). The experiment itself has been accepted enthusiastically in many circles
without much critical scrutiny. In a poll conducted for Physics World, its readers considered the oil drop experiment to be one of the ten ‘most beautiful’ ones of all time (Crease, 2002). Furthermore,
according to Crease many respondents considered that the experiment was conceived, carried out, and understood with considerable
ease. Similarly, Segerstrale (1995) contrasted the opposing interpretations of Millikan's research ethics, which show the
tendency to produce “canned” stories about Millikan that are stereotyped and oversimplified.