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Arthur Milne
Times obituary
MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS OF THE UNIVERSE
Dr. Arthur Milne, M.B.E., D.Sc., F.R.S., Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, died in hospital in Dublin yesterday at the age of 54. He had been in failing health for some time and was taken ill while on his way to the conference of the Royal Astronomical Society in Dublin.
He won fame in the first instance as a mathematical astrophysicist. That is to say, he concerned himself with physical problems relating to the sun and stars and used mathematical methods to solve these problems; he himself was not an observing astronomer, though he took as his material for study the observations made by others. His research is too technical to be readily described in ordinary language, and even their results cannot be summarized here; but he played a notable part in that great advance in our understanding of the nature and equilibrium of stars and their atmospheres, which made the quarter of a century from 1910 to 1935 one of the most brilliant in the history of astronomical thought. In 1935, the importance of his contribution to astronomy won for him the highest award of the Royal Astronomical Society—namely, its gold medal.
By 1932, however, without ceasing to be interested in the problems connected with individual stars, he had begun to turn to still wider and deeper questions. Astronomers had discovered that the distant nebulae appear to be receding from us, the faster the more distant. This "expansion of the universe" aroused much discussion, particularly among experts in the theory of relativity. Milne gave a possible explanation of it, so simple that everyone else had missed it. This started a train of thought that soon led him to a theory of the foundations of almost the whole range of physics and provided an alternative to the general theory of relativity developed by Einstein and his followers. He made a far-reaching analysis of the concept of time, and developed a new theory of gravitation.
Milne's later work, on the interior (as distinct from the atmospheres) of stars, and on relativity, led to much controversy, particularly with Sir Arthur Eddington. But the originality and boldness of his attack on these great problems seem certain to promote our understanding of them by opening up fresh views and methods of approach. He was notably gifted with the power of lucid expression in speech and writing, and it was highly interesting to see and hear him threading his way with certainty through the steps of a complex argument. But complementary to his breadth of view was an intense interest in detail, which sometimes obscured the main lines of his exposition for his hearers.
Edward Arthur Milne was born on February 14, 1896, at Hull, where his father was headmaster of an elementary school From his father's school he proceeded to Hymers College (an excellent endowed school in Hull), and then to Trinity College, Cambridge, which he entered as a mathematical scholar in 1914. After two years of wartime studies he left Cambridge and became a member of the Anti-Aircraft Experimental Section, Munitions Inventions Department, at Portsmouth in 1919. Having no university examination successes to his credit, he took a war degree. Nevertheless, during his undergraduate studies and at Portsmouth his intellectual brilliance had become clearly recognized, and in 1919 he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College. He proceeded to justify this award by an outpouring of mathematical research of such quality that a rapid succession of further honours came to him: the Smith's Prize in 1922, the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1926, and in 1929 the invitation to give that society's Bakerian Lecture.
He also held a succession of appointments before his election to the newly founded Rouse Ball Chair of mathematics at Oxford in 1929. He served under Professor H. F. Newall as assistant director of the Cambridge Solar Physics Observatory from 1922 to 1923, as university lecturer in astrophysics from 1923 to 1925, as mathematical lecturer at Trinity College from 1923 to 1925, and as Professor of Mathematics at Manchester University from 1924 to 1928. Thereafter, Oxford was his home and place of work, except for another period of research on ballistics at Chislehurst during the 1939 to 1945 war. Although occupying himself so much with matters remote from the knowledge and interests of the mass of mankind, he was very human, sharing in the delights of home and family, of meals, and of social ceremony. His happiness depended greatly on the good will and approval of his scientific colleagues. In spite of all his unmistakable brilliance and dedication, in moments of depression he was sorely tried by a sense of inadequacy.
He married twice; his first wife, Margaret, daughter of Mr. H. F. Campbell, whom he married in 1928 and by whom he had two daughters and a son, died in tragic circumstances after the birth of her son. His second wife, Beatrice Brevoort, daughter of the late W. W. Renwick, of New York, whom he married in 1940, made an epic journey to become his bride, crossing the Atlantic and much of Europe during one of the darkest phases of the 1939-45 war. She died in 1945. There was a daughter of the marriage.
MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS OF THE UNIVERSE
Dr. Arthur Milne, M.B.E., D.Sc., F.R.S., Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, died in hospital in Dublin yesterday at the age of 54. He had been in failing health for some time and was taken ill while on his way to the conference of the Royal Astronomical Society in Dublin.
He won fame in the first instance as a mathematical astrophysicist. That is to say, he concerned himself with physical problems relating to the sun and stars and used mathematical methods to solve these problems; he himself was not an observing astronomer, though he took as his material for study the observations made by others. His research is too technical to be readily described in ordinary language, and even their results cannot be summarized here; but he played a notable part in that great advance in our understanding of the nature and equilibrium of stars and their atmospheres, which made the quarter of a century from 1910 to 1935 one of the most brilliant in the history of astronomical thought. In 1935, the importance of his contribution to astronomy won for him the highest award of the Royal Astronomical Society—namely, its gold medal.
By 1932, however, without ceasing to be interested in the problems connected with individual stars, he had begun to turn to still wider and deeper questions. Astronomers had discovered that the distant nebulae appear to be receding from us, the faster the more distant. This "expansion of the universe" aroused much discussion, particularly among experts in the theory of relativity. Milne gave a possible explanation of it, so simple that everyone else had missed it. This started a train of thought that soon led him to a theory of the foundations of almost the whole range of physics and provided an alternative to the general theory of relativity developed by Einstein and his followers. He made a far-reaching analysis of the concept of time, and developed a new theory of gravitation.
Milne's later work, on the interior (as distinct from the atmospheres) of stars, and on relativity, led to much controversy, particularly with Sir Arthur Eddington. But the originality and boldness of his attack on these great problems seem certain to promote our understanding of them by opening up fresh views and methods of approach. He was notably gifted with the power of lucid expression in speech and writing, and it was highly interesting to see and hear him threading his way with certainty through the steps of a complex argument. But complementary to his breadth of view was an intense interest in detail, which sometimes obscured the main lines of his exposition for his hearers.
Edward Arthur Milne was born on February 14, 1896, at Hull, where his father was headmaster of an elementary school From his father's school he proceeded to Hymers College (an excellent endowed school in Hull), and then to Trinity College, Cambridge, which he entered as a mathematical scholar in 1914. After two years of wartime studies he left Cambridge and became a member of the Anti-Aircraft Experimental Section, Munitions Inventions Department, at Portsmouth in 1919. Having no university examination successes to his credit, he took a war degree. Nevertheless, during his undergraduate studies and at Portsmouth his intellectual brilliance had become clearly recognized, and in 1919 he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College. He proceeded to justify this award by an outpouring of mathematical research of such quality that a rapid succession of further honours came to him: the Smith's Prize in 1922, the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1926, and in 1929 the invitation to give that society's Bakerian Lecture.
He also held a succession of appointments before his election to the newly founded Rouse Ball Chair of mathematics at Oxford in 1929. He served under Professor H. F. Newall as assistant director of the Cambridge Solar Physics Observatory from 1922 to 1923, as university lecturer in astrophysics from 1923 to 1925, as mathematical lecturer at Trinity College from 1923 to 1925, and as Professor of Mathematics at Manchester University from 1924 to 1928. Thereafter, Oxford was his home and place of work, except for another period of research on ballistics at Chislehurst during the 1939 to 1945 war. Although occupying himself so much with matters remote from the knowledge and interests of the mass of mankind, he was very human, sharing in the delights of home and family, of meals, and of social ceremony. His happiness depended greatly on the good will and approval of his scientific colleagues. In spite of all his unmistakable brilliance and dedication, in moments of depression he was sorely tried by a sense of inadequacy.
He married twice; his first wife, Margaret, daughter of Mr. H. F. Campbell, whom he married in 1928 and by whom he had two daughters and a son, died in tragic circumstances after the birth of her son. His second wife, Beatrice Brevoort, daughter of the late W. W. Renwick, of New York, whom he married in 1940, made an epic journey to become his bride, crossing the Atlantic and much of Europe during one of the darkest phases of the 1939-45 war. She died in 1945. There was a daughter of the marriage.
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