Milne, Edward Arthur

Milne, Edward Arthur (1896-1950), British mathematician, astrophysicist, and cosmologist, born in Hull and educated at Hymer's College, Hull, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was the Assistant Director of the Cambridge Solar Physics Observatory (1920-1924), Professor of Mathematics at Manchester University (1924-1928), and the first Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University from 1928 until his untimely death.

His early researches, with Ralph Fowler, were on radiative equilibrium in stellar atmospheres, and he was the first to calculate the electron pressure these (see Star). After his appointment at Oxford, his main interest turned to cosmology and he developed an explanation of the expansion of the universe—his theory of “kinematic relativity”—which was based on a priori reasoning rather than established physics. This theory, which was both highly original and controversial, led to the conclusion that the universe is 10 billion years old—an age that present-day cosmologists believe to be of the correct order of magnitude.