Robin Milner

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Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner FRS FRSE (born January 13, 1934 in Yealmpton near Plymouth , † March 20, 2010 in Cambridge ) was a British professor of computer science and Turing Prize winner .

biography

Milner was the son of infantry officer John Theodore Milner and Muriel Emily Milner. He spent his childhood in various places in England, Scotland and Wales. At times he attended the Selwyn House School, and from 1947 as a scholarship holder of the Eton College (inter alia with the later Lord Richard Layard ). He then completed his military service with the Royal Engineers at the Suez Canal from 1952 to 1954 , where he reached the rank of sub-lieutenant, and then studied mathematics and later philosophy at King's College of the University of Cambridge with a further scholarship . In 1957 he received his BA and worked in London, initially in several part-time jobs, later a year as a mathematics school teacher at St Marylebone Grammar School and finally from 1960 as a programmer at Ferranti , where he was in charge of the Sirius computer program library .

In 1963 he was appointed to teach mathematics and computer science at City University London , where his interest in artificial intelligence was aroused in particular through the work of Christopher Strachey . This was followed by research activities at Swansea University (1968 to 1971), Stanford University (1971 to 1973) and from 1973 at the University of Edinburgh , where he became full professor in 1984 (after a visiting professorship at Aarhus University 1979 to 1980) in 1984 and 1986 until 1989 founding director of the Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science . Above all, he strengthened the anchoring of theoretical computer science in teaching. In 1995 he returned to Cambridge University, where he headed the Computer Laboratory from 1996 to 1999 , from which he gradually withdrew. He retired in 2001, but continued his research in both Cambridge and Edinburgh and from 2006 to 2007 he was chaire international de recherche Blaise-Pascal at the École normal supérieure in Paris.

Milner was always interested in the theoretical foundations for practical problems, with a focus on programming languages, formal proofs and abstract calculation models. He developed (inspired by the work of Dana Scott ) in John McCarthy's research group at Stanford LCF ( Logic for Computable Functions ), one of the first tools for automatic proof . The programming language ML ( Meta-Language ), which he developed for the implementation of LCF, was the first language with polymorphic type inference and type-safe exception handling , and has developed into an independent working and teaching programming language. Milner also directed its further development to Standard ML from 1983 to 1990. In a completely different area, Milner developed a theory for the analysis of concurrent systems, the calculus of communicating systems (CCS; basis of the ISO standard Language of Temporal Ordering Specification , LOTOS) and (with Joachim Parrow and David Walker) his successor, the π-calculus , and also with David Park the concept of bis-simulation . Most recently he designed a mathematical model based on bigraphs , which was to be used in particular in ubiquitous computing , and for which he also worked with Tony Hoare . Milner also used all these achievements intensively in teaching. Although he never did a doctorate himself, he supervised 19 doctoral students in his career.

In addition to various university committees, he was a member of a. also served on the Council of the European Association for Computer Science Theory and the Mathematics and Computer Science Committee of the Royal Society , advised Danmarks Grundforskningsfond on the establishment of postgraduate schools and was a founding member of the UK Computing Research Committee . He worked u. a. for the journals Theoretical Computer Science and The Computer Journal .

Milner had been married to Lucy Milner since 1963 and had a daughter and two sons, but one of whom he survived.

Awards (selection)

He was made a member (" Fellow ") of the Royal Society of London in 1988 and received the ACM Turing Award in 1991 for LCF, ML and CCS. In 1994 he received the Friedrich L. Bauer Prize , in 2004 one of the Royal Medals of the Royal Society of Edinburgh , and in 2005 the EATCS Award .

Milner was a founding member of the Academia Europaea (1988), Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society (1988), and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1993) and the ACM (1994), as well as a foreign member of the Académie des Sciences (2005) and the National Academy of Engineering (2008).

He received honorary doctorates from TH Chalmers (1988), the University of Stirling (1996), the University of Bologna (1997), the City University London (1998), the University of Aarhus (1999), the University of Essex (2000), the University of Edinburgh (2003), the University of Glasgow (2005) and the University of Paris-South (2007), and is an Honorary Fellow of Swansea University (2004).

Milner himself donated money to the University of Edinburgh to organize the annual Milner Lecture , which has been honoring researchers every year since 1996 who have made significant contributions to the connection between theoretical and practical computer science.

Royal Society Milner Award

The Royal Society Milner Award named after Robin Milner is presented for outstanding achievements in the field of computer science. Prize winners are Xavier Leroy (2016), Thomas Henzinger (2015), Bernhard Schölkopf (2014), Serge Abiteboul (2013) and Gordon Plotkin (2012).

Fonts (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter M. Académie des sciences, accessed on January 23, 2020 (French).
  2. ^ Royal Society Milner Award ( Memento from July 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ). Retrieved July 20, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Milner, Robin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Milner, Arthur John Robin Gorell (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British university lecturer, professor of computer science and Turing Prize winner
DATE OF BIRTH January 13, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Yealmpton
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 2010
Place of death Cambridge