Background
Edward Arthur Milne was born on February 14, 1896, in Kingston upon Hull, United Kingdom. He was a son of Sidney Arthur Milne, a chief administrator of a private Church of England school, and Edith Cockcroft, a teacher.
1928
From left to right, standing: Mark Gertler, Hewy Levy, Walter J. Turner, Edward Arthur Milne. Sitting: Ralph Hodgson, J.W.N. Sullivan, S. S. Koteliansky. London, 1928.
Hymers Ave, Hull HU3 1LN, United Kingdom
In his early years, Edward studied at Hymers College.
Cambridge CB2 1TQ, United Kingdom
During the period from 1914 till 1916, Milne attended Trinity College, Cambridge.
Order of the British Empire (MBE)
London, United Kingdom
From 1943 till 1945, Milne served as a President of the Royal Astronomical Society.
astrophysicist mathematician scientist author
Edward Arthur Milne was born on February 14, 1896, in Kingston upon Hull, United Kingdom. He was a son of Sidney Arthur Milne, a chief administrator of a private Church of England school, and Edith Cockcroft, a teacher.
Initially, Edward studied at Hymers College. It was there, that he won an open scholarship in mathematics and natural science to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, which he attended during the period from 1914 till 1916.
In 1916, Edward joined a group of mathematicians, headed by A. V. Hill. Together, they performed military research for the Munitions Inventions Department in the Anti-Aircraft Experimental Section. The group became known as "Hill's Brigands".
In 1917, Milne became a lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. In 1919, when he returned to Trinity College, Cambridge, as a research fellow, he published three papers, related to his work during the war, which culminated in his being elected Prize Fellow of the same college.
In 1920, extending his atmospheric research to the theoretical study of the Sun, Milne became a director of the Solar Physics Laboratory at the University of Cambridge and taught courses in mathematics and astrophysics. He held a post of a director until 1925.
In the mid-1920's, Edward accepted a post of a chair of Applied Mathematics at Victoria University of Manchester, where he stayed for several years. The inevitable job-hopping, that characterizes the careers of many successful scientists, came to an end for Milne in 1929, when he assumed the newly created post of Rouse Ball Chair of Mathematics at the University of Oxford. He held this post until the end of his life in 1950.
Milne’s early work involved developing mathematical studies of the surfaces and atmospheres of stars. Collaborating with Cambridge colleague and fellow astrophysicist Ralph H. Fowler, Milne was able to mathematically derive specific surface temperatures for stars of any spectral type, thus greatly strengthening astronomers’ understanding of stellar structure.
Milne’s investigation into the equilibrium between gravity and radiation pressure in the atmosphere of stars led to his prediction of the occurrence of periodic, explosive outbursts of electrically charged particles from near a star’s surface. Years after Milne’s prediction, the existence of solar wind, consisting of charged particles, emanating from the sun, was confirmed.
The challenge of understanding the complex behavior of stellar atmospheres continued to occupy Milne’s attention after his appointment at the University of Oxford, where he revised and amended the work of English physicist and astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington on stellar structure. Milne’s adjustments to Eddington’s theories were not generally accepted, however, and it was at this moment in his career, that Milne embarked on a new direction of research.
By the early 1930's, Einstein’s theory of relativity had firmly gripped the minds and imaginations of scientists. Many members of the scientific community accepted the logic and consequences of Einstein’s special theory of relativity, with its specific formulation of the effects of linear, non-accelerated motion upon the measurement of time and space. Einstein’s general theory of relativity was a different matter, however. The consequences of the general theory’s space-time geometry were, and still are, difficult to interpret and confirm experimentally. But a more subtle problem was the implication of the theory, that a phenomenon, such as gravity, was an illusion, of sorts, generated by underlying geometric principles. Many scientists were disturbed by this — not so much by the specific idea of geometric "illusions", but by the possibility, that all of nature could consist of unknown structures, disguised by a scrim of subjective "forces", that did not lend themselves to the scrutiny of experimental confirmation. There was also a strong feeling, that Einstein’s general theory, though immensely profound, was too broadly conceived to be a really useful physical theory. Almost as soon as it was introduced, and for years afterward, mathematicians and scientists worked to improve the theory. Milne was among them.
From 1932 until the time of his death, Milne developed a parallel cosmological theory of his own. He accepted Einstein’s special theory of relativity and the geometry of Greek philosopher Euclid, but Milne rejected the general theory of relativity. From this, Milne developed his "kinematic relativity", which enabled him to derive a gravitational theory and to formulate a system of electrodynamics. A consequence of his theory was the formulation of the "cosmological principle", which asserts, that the universe appears the same from wherever it is observed.
Milne also derived a more acceptable measurement for the age of the universe, using his kinematic theory. Unfortunately, Milne’s theory was not well received because of its Cartesian style philosophical foundation, based upon supposedly self-evident "first principles".
In the mind-boggling era of relativity and Quantum Mechanics, which were founded upon complex empirical phenomena, most scientists developed the habit of distrusting philosophical cosmologies, based on intuitive "truths". The fact, that Milne’s kinematic relativity was regarded with skepticism, though, did not deter him from tinkering with it throughout his life, reminiscent of the manner, in which German astronomer Johannes Kepler, centuries earlier, persistently clung to his own discredited theory of planetary motion, based on Perfect Solids.
Milne’s work was interrupted during the period from 1939 to 1944, when, in response to wartime necessities, he served the Ministry of Supply on the Ordnance Board. After World War II, Milne’s health began to deteriorate. On September 21, 1950, he died suddenly, while attending a conference in Dublin.
(The International series of monographs on Physics.)
1948
Edward had the modesty and simplicity of character, that often goes with scientific genius, and he also bore personal adversities with audacity and dignity.
In 1928, Edward married Margaret Campbell. They were blessed with two daughters and a son. Margaret died during the birth of their son.
In 1940, Milne married again, this time Beatrice Brevoort Renwick. Their marriage produced a daughter. Beatrice died in 1945.