Person: Milner, Eric
Eric Milne was an English mathematician who spent much of his time abroad and who worked mainly in combinatorial set theory.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- This is exactly what happened here, for Frederick Milner was often out of work and Annie helped out with the finances as a seamstress.
- The authorities tried to find a more suitable place to send him but this took time and Eric wandered around the streets of London when he should have been at school.
- At King's College, mathematics was part of the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Science when Milner began his studies.
- Milner graduated with a First Class Honours degree in mathematics in 1949 having received the Drew Gold Medal as top ranked mathematics student in that year.
- At that time, National Service was compulsory in Britain, and Eric applied to join the Royal Navy, in which his academic record would normally have secured a commission and in which he might well have made his career.
- Milner sailed on the ship Glenroy from London to Singapore on his way to Malaya, leaving London on 9 October 1951.
- Soon after both Guy and Milner arrived, they met socially and Guy tried hard to persuade Milner to give up his idea of working as a commercial assistant for the Straits Trading Company and join the Mathematics Department of the University of Malaya.
- Milner took a lot of persuading but eventually decided that he would give it a try.
- While he had been a student at King's College, London, Milner had met Esther Stella Lawton (known as Estelle).
- We see that despite Milner having been doing research on quantum mechanics while in London, he had becoame interested in number theory at the University of Malaya.
- Milner's first research paper was the joint publication Generalized decimals (1955) with Oppenheim.
- Milner's interest in number theory and combinatorial set theory was greatly increased by Paul Erdős who made several visits to Singapore.
- It may have been Erdős's influence which finally convinced Milner that a university career in mathematics was right for him.
- Certainly it was through a suggestion by Erdős that Milner spent his sabbatical leave, 1958-59, at the University of Reading with Richard Rado.
- Milner knew Rado well from his time at King's College, London, and Rado had moved to Reading to take up the chair of mathematics there in 1954.
- Another strong influence on Milner's career was Andras Hajnal whom he met in Reading in 1958.
- We note at this point that Eric and Estelle Milner had three sons: Mark, Paul and Simon.
- Back in Singapore, Milner and Oppenheim published another joint paper, Properties of tetrahedra (1960).
- Milner had begun a Ph.D. at the University of London before going to Singapore so, back in Britain in a university post, he immediately decided to complete his doctorate, not in quantum mechanics but in his new area of interest, combinatorial set theory.
- Two of Milner's Singapore colleagues, Richard Guy and Peter Lancaster (born 1929), had moved from Singapore to the University of Calgary in Canada.
- They tried to persuade Milner to take a position in Calgary and, in 1967, he accepted a professorship at the University of Calgary.
- Milner spent the rest of his career in Calgary, becoming a Canadian citizen in 1973.
- When we say that Milner "spent the rest of his career in Calgary" we mean that he continued to hold his permanent professorship there.
- Eric and Elizabeth Milner had one son, Robert born in January 1985.
- Milner was a plenary 1-hour speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Vancouver in August 1974.
- People tell with particular warmth of the welcome and hospitality extended to numerous guests in the Milner household (during both of his marriages).
- Milner's health deteriorated and he was diagnosed with cancer.
Born 17 May 1928, London, England. Died 20 July 1997, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin England
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
- Github:
-
- non-Github:
- @J-J-O'Connor
- @E-F-Robertson
References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
