Edward Arthur Milne facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Arthur Milne
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| Born | 14 February 1896 Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England
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| Died | 21 September 1950 (aged 54) Dublin, Ireland
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| Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
| Known for | Milne model Degenerate stars |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Victoria University of Manchester University of Oxford |
| Doctoral students | Thomas Cowling |
Edward Arthur Milne was a brilliant British astrophysicist and mathematician. He was born on February 14, 1896, and passed away on September 21, 1950. He is famous for his ideas about how the universe expands and how stars are built.
Contents
A Life of Learning and Discovery
Milne was born in Kingston upon Hull, England. He was a very smart student from a young age. In 1914, he won a special scholarship to study at Trinity College, Cambridge. He even got the highest score ever on the entrance exam!
During World War I, Milne used his math skills to help his country. He joined a group of mathematicians who worked on improving anti-aircraft guns. They were known as 'Hill's Brigands'. He also became an expert at finding the location of sounds.
After the war, Milne became a fellow at Trinity College. He taught about the Sun and astrophysics. Later, he became a professor at the Victoria University of Manchester and then at the University of Oxford.
Milne's early work focused on stars. Later, he became very interested in the theory of relativity and the study of the universe (called cosmology). He was also the President of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1943 to 1945.
Milne married Margaret Scott Campbell in 1928. She sadly passed away in 1938. He then married Beatrice Brevoort Renwick in 1940, but she also passed away young in 1945. Milne died in Dublin, Ireland, while preparing to give some lectures. These lectures were later published in his book, Modern Cosmology and the Christian Idea of God.
Understanding Stars: Atmospheres and Structure
In the 1920s, Milne spent a lot of time studying stars. He was especially interested in their outer layers, called stellar atmospheres. These are the parts of a star that produce the light we see from Earth.
Milne created models to understand how temperature changes within a star's atmosphere. He also looked at how the brightness of light from a star changes depending on its color. He found that tiny, negatively-charged hydrogen particles play a big role in how stars absorb light.
He also worked with another scientist, Ralph H. Fowler. They studied how the lines in a star's spectrum (like a rainbow of light) show what elements are in the star. They used ideas from Meghnad Saha about how gases become ionized (lose electrons) in stars.
Milne also studied the inside of stars. He sometimes had different ideas from another famous scientist, Arthur Eddington, about how stars are built.
Exploring the Universe: Cosmology and Relativity
From the 1930s, Milne became very interested in the theory of relativity and cosmology. Cosmology is the study of the universe's origin, evolution, and future.
He worked on the idea of an "expanding universe." In his 1935 book, Relativity, Gravitation, and World-Structure, he suggested a different way to understand the universe's expansion. This was an alternative to Albert Einstein's famous general relativity theory.
Milne's idea was called Kinematic Relativity. It was based on a simpler part of Einstein's theory. He showed that some important models of the universe could be explained using simpler physics, not just Einstein's complex theory. His ideas were different from what most scientists believed, but they inspired other theories about the universe.
Milne's Model of the Universe
Milne's model of an expanding universe was different from Einstein's in a key way. Milne did not assume that matter was spread out perfectly evenly everywhere in the universe. He also didn't include gravity in his first model.
Milne thought that if the universe was expanding, its density (how much stuff is packed into a space) would change over time. He suggested that if two areas seemed to have the same density at the same time to one observer, they might not seem that way to another observer.
His model described the universe as a sphere. It had a fairly even spread of matter close to the center, but then the density would increase a lot further out. This model was unique because it looked the same no matter which "stationary" particle you chose as the center. This idea helped him create a model that could be described using simple Euclidean geometry.
In 1935, Milne's model also made a prediction about the cosmic background radiation. This is a faint glow of heat left over from the early universe. His prediction was different from what Eddington had suggested.
Beliefs and Faith
Milne was a Christian theist, meaning he believed in God. In 1950, he gave a series of lectures about Christianity and cosmology. These lectures were later published in a book called Modern Cosmology and the Christian Idea of God.
Milne also believed in Theistic evolutionism. This is the idea that God guided the process of evolution with "deft touches" to help living things develop.
Awards and Recognition
Milne received many honors for his important work:
- MBE (1918)
- Smith's Prize (1922)
- Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1935)
- Royal Society's Royal Medal (1941)
- Bruce Medal (1945)
Named After Him
Two things have been named in honor of Edward Arthur Milne:
- Milne, a crater on the Moon.
- The E.A. Milne Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Hull, which opened in 2015.
Books by Milne
Milne wrote many books about his research and ideas:
- Thermodynamics of the Stars, 1930.
- The White Dwarf Stars, 1932.
- Relativity, gravitation and world-structure, 1935.
- The Inverse Square Law of Gravitation, 1936.
- The Fundamental Concepts of Natural Philosophy, 1943.
- Kinematic relativity; a sequel to Relativity, gravitation and world structure, 1948.
- Vectorial Mechanics, 1948.
- Modern Cosmology and the Christian Idea of God, 1952.
- Sir James Jeans: A Biography, 1952.
See also
In Spanish: Edward Arthur Milne para niños
- Alternatives to general relativity
- List of science and religion scholars
- Saha ionization equation
