Edward Milne's influence on modern cosmology

Summary

During the 1930 and 1940s, the small world of cosmologists was buzzing with philosophical and methodological questions. The debate was stirred by Edward Milne's cosmological model, which was deduced from general principles that had no link with observation. Milne's approach was to have an important impact on the development of modern cosmology. But this article shows that it is an exaggeration to intimate, as some authors have done recently, that Milne's rationalism went on to infiltrate the discipline.

I would like to thank Danny Yee and Jennifer Yee for help with my English.

Notes

¹When we mention these authors without speaking of one in particular, we will use the expression ‘Gale and co.’

²George Gale, ‘Rationalist Programmes in Early Modern Cosmology’, The Astronomy Quarterly, 8 (1991), 193–218. George Gale, ‘Philosophical Aspects of the Origin of Modern Cosmology’ in Encyclopedia of Cosmology, edited by Norris S. Herherington (London, 1993), 481–495. George Gale and John Urani, ‘Philosophical midwifery and the birthpangs of modern cosmology’, American Journal of Physcis, 61 (1993), 66–73. John Urani and George Gale, ‘E. A. Milne and the Origins of Modern Cosmology: An Essential Presence’, in The Attraction of Gravitation: New Studies in the History of General Relativity (Einstein Studies, vol. 5), edited by John Earman, Michel Janssen and John D. Norton (Boston, 1993), 390–419. George Gale and Niall Shanks, ‘Methodology and the Birth of Modern Cosmological Inquiry’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 27 (1996), 279–296. George Gale and John Urani, ‘Milne, Bondi and the ‘Second Way’ to Cosmology’, in The Expanding Worlds of General Relativity (Einstein Studies, vol. 7), edited by H. Goenner, J. Renn, J. Ritter and T. Sauer (Boston, 1999), 343–375. George Gale, 2002, ‘Cosmology: Methodological Debates in the 1930s and 1940s’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2002 Edition), edited by Edward N. Zalta (http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2002/entries/cosmology-30s/), 2002), 1–18.

³See, in particular, George Gale and John Urani, 1993 (note 2).

⁴Edward Arthur Milne, ‘World Structure and the Expansion of the Universe’, Nature, 130 (1932), 9–10.

⁵Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold, ‘The Steady-State Theory of the Expanding Universe’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 108 (1948), 252–270.

⁶Allen J. Harder, ‘E. A. Milne, Scientific Revolutions and the Growth of Knowledge’, Annals of Science, 31 (1974), 351–363.

⁷In particular, in John Urani and George Gale (note 2).

⁸George Gale, 1993 (note 2), 492.

⁹George Gale and John Urani, 1993 (note 2), 72.

¹⁰George Gale and Niall Shanks (note 2), 291.

¹¹Edward Arthur Milne, ‘Cosmological Theories’, The Astrophysical Journal, 91 (1940), 129–158, 133.

¹²Edward Arthur Milne, ‘World-Structure and the Expansion of the Universe’, Zeitschrift für Astrophysik, 6 (1933), 1–95.

¹³Herbert Dingle, ‘On E. A. Milne's Theory of World Structure and the Expansion of the Universe’, Zeitschrift für Astrophysik, 6 (1933), 167–179.

¹⁴Herbert Dingle (note 13), 167.

¹⁵Herbert Dingle (note 13), 179.

¹⁶Herbert Dingle (note 13), 178.

¹⁷Herbert Dingle (note 13), 178.

¹⁸Herbert Dingle (note 13), 179.

²²Herbert Dingle (note 19), 784.

¹⁹Herbert Dingle, ‘Modern Aristotelianism’, Nature, 139 (1937a), 784–786.

²⁰Edward Arthur Milne, ‘Kinematics, Dynamics, and the Scale of Time’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, A, 158 (1937a), 329.

²¹Herbert Dingle (note 19), 784.

²³Herbert Dingle (note 19), 786.

²⁷Arthur Stanley Eddington et al. (note 24), 1002.

²⁴Arthur Stanley Eddington et al., ‘Physical Science and Philosophy’, Nature, 139 (1937), 1000–1010.

²⁵Edward Arthur Milne, ‘On the Origin of Laws of Nature’, Nature, 139 (1937b), 997–999.

²⁶Herbert Dingle, ‘Deductive and Inductive Methods in Science: A Reply’, Nature, 139 (1937b), 1011–1012.

²⁸Herbert Dingle (note 26), 1011.

²⁹Herbert Dingle (note 26), 1011.

³⁰Arthur Stanley Eddington et al. (note 24), 1002.

³¹Arthur Stanley Eddington et al. (note 24), 1003.

³²Arthur Stanley Eddington et al. (note 24), 1006.

³³Arthur Stanley Eddington et al. (note 24), 1004.

³⁴Arthur Stanley Eddington et al. (note 24), 1005.

³⁵George Temple, ‘Relativistic cosmology’, The Proceedings of the Physical Society, 51 (1939), 465–478.

³⁶George Gale, 1993 (note 2), 492.

³⁹Percy Howard Robertson, ‘On E. A. Milne's Theory of World-Structure’, Zeitschrift für Astrophysik, 6 (1933), 158.

³⁷Arthur Stanley Eddington et al. (note 24), 1003.

³⁸For example, Hermann Bondi, Cosmology (Cambridge, 1960 [1952]), 123–124.

⁴⁰Edward Arthur Milne (note 11), 151.

⁴³Albert Einstein (note 41), 167.

⁴⁶Hermann Bondi, ‘Review of Cosmology’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 108 (1948), 107.

⁴¹Albert Einstein, ‘On the Method of Theoretical Physics’, Philosophy of Science, 1 (1934), 166.

⁴²Albert Einstein (note 41), 167.

⁴⁴Albert Einstein (note 41), 167.

⁴⁵Albert Einstein, ‘Remarks to the Essays Appearing in this Collective Volume’, in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp (Evanston, IL, 1949), 684.

⁴⁷George Gale, 1991 (note 2), 215. George Gale and John Urani (note 2), 68.

⁴⁸George Gale, 1993 (note 2), 493. George Gale and John Urani (note 2), 72. George Gale and Niall Shanks (note 2), 291. George Gale and John Urani, 1993 (note 2), 345–347.

⁴⁹Richard Tolman, ‘Models of the Physical Universe’, Science, 75 (1932), 373.

⁵⁰Edward Arthur Milne (note 11), 132.

⁵³William Hunter McCrea (note 51), p. 137.

⁵¹William Hunter McCrea, ‘The Evolution of Theories of Space–Time and Mechanics’, Philosophy of Science, 6 (1939), 137–162.

⁵²William Hunter McCrea (note 51), p. 137.

⁵⁴William Hunter McCrea (note 51), p. 154.

⁵⁵William Hunter McCrea (note 51), p. 154.

⁵⁷Edmund Taylor Whittaker (note 56), 169.

⁵⁶Edmund Taylor Whittaker, ‘Some Disputed Questions in the Philosophy of the Physical Sciences’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh A, 61 (1943), 166.

⁵⁸Edmund Taylor Whittaker (note 56), 169.

⁵⁹Edmund Taylor Whittaker (note 56), 172.

⁶⁰Edmund Taylor Whittaker (note 56), 169.

⁶¹Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold (note 5).

⁶²Hermann Bondi (note 38).

⁶³In particular, in George Gale and John Urani, 1999 (note 2).

⁶⁴Herbert Dingle, ‘On Science and Modern Cosmology’, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 113 (1953), 403.

⁶⁵George Cunliffe McVittie, ‘Rationalism Versus Empiricism in Cosmology’, Science, 133 (1961), 1231–1236.

⁶⁶Helge Kragh, Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe (Princeton, NJ, 1996).

⁶⁷Helge Kragh, ‘Cosmo-Physics in the Thirties: Towards a History of Dirac Cosmology’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 13 (1982), 69–108.

⁶⁸Milton Munitz, ‘Scientific Method in Cosmology’, Philosophy of Science, 19 (1952), 108–130.

⁶⁹Milton Munitz, (note 68), 118.

⁷⁰Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, ‘Edward Arthur Milne: His Part in the Development of Modern Astrophysics’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 21 (1980), 103.