Electrostatic levitation was used  was used in the oil drop experiment and is used to suspend the gyroscopes in Gravity Probe B during launch. The person who performed the oil drop experiment.  was born in 1868.
The oil drop experiment was performed by Robert A. Millikan and Harvey Fletcher in 1909 to measure the elementary electric charge (the charge of the electron). 
Robert Andrews Millikan (March 22, 1868  December 19, 1953) was an American experimental physicist honored with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1923 for the measurement of the elementary electronic charge and for his work on the photoelectric effect. 
 It was used, for instance, in Robert Millikan's oil drop experiment and is used to suspend the gyroscopes in Gravity Probe B during launch. 
