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This description is fine as far as it goes. But questions arise. For instance, how did the oil drops acquire a charge? (I found the answer on the Internet in less than a minute. Millikan used an atomizer to spray oil drops into the electric field. Some of the drops picked up an electron or two because of the friction between the oil and the atomizer's nozzle.)

To get a better feel for this difficult experiment, Johnson decided to replicate it. He painstakingly assembled equipment that was almost identical to that used by Millikan, and he began his observations just as Millikan had. However, his results were all over the map. Finally, he gave up. He realized what so many of us lab klutzes have discovered. Lab work is not just science, it is also art. Johnson nicely sums up his experience with Millikan's experiment: "for me to master so delicate an experiment would be like learning to play the violin ..."

This result leads Johnson to an important insight -- one known to almost every experimental scientist but rarely understood by those who work outside the lab. "These things sound so easy in the physics books," he writes wistfully. "You don't hear about the brass plates shorting out and sparking because a metal clip slipped into the wrong position. Or about spraying too much oil and clogging the pinhole." The knack for overcoming such small but annoying obstacles plays a big role in the making of an outstanding bench scientist. And scientists with that knack will continue to pursue difficult experiments because -- as this book illustrates -- that's where the scientific gold is.

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