View source for Robin Milner

{{short description|British computer scientist (1934–2010)}}
{{use British English|date=November 2024}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Robin Milner
| image             = Robin_Milner.jpg
| image_size        = 
| caption           = 
| birth_name        = Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner
| birth_date        = {{birth date|df=yes|1934|01|13}}
| birth_place       = [[Yealmpton]], [[Plymouth]], [[England]]
| death_date        = {{death date and age|df=yes|2010|03|20|1934|01|13}}
| death_place       = [[Cambridge]], [[England]]
| education         = [[King's College, Cambridge]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])
| doctoral_students = [[Mads Tofte]] (1988)<br />[[Faron Moller]]<br />[[Chris Tofts]]<br />[[Davide Sangiorgi]] (1993)<ref>{{cite thesis |last1=Sangiorgi |first1=Davide |title=Expressing Mobility in Process Algebras: First-Order and Higher-Order Paradigms |type=PhD thesis |institution=[[University of Edinburgh]] |date=1993 |hdl=1842/6569 |oclc=29948444 |id={{EThOS| uk.bl.ethos.566460}}}}</ref><ref name="mathgene">{{MathGenealogy |id=143382}}</ref>
| known_for         = {{Plainlist|
* Theory of Computer Science
*  [[LCF theorem prover|LCF]]
* [[ML programming language|ML]]
* {{nowrap|[[Calculus of communicating systems]]}}
* [[pi-calculus|{{pi}}-calculus]]
* [[Type inference#Hindley.E2.80.93Milner type inference algorithm|Hindley–Milner type inference]]}}
| footnotes         = 
| ethnicity         = 
| field             = [[Computer science]]
| work_institution  = {{Plainlist|
* [[Ferranti]]
* [[City University, London]]
* [[Swansea University]]
* [[Stanford University]]
* [[University of Edinburgh]]
* [[University of Cambridge]]
* [[Aarhus University]]}}
| author_abbreviation_bot = 
| author_abbreviation_zoo = 
| prizes            = {{Plainlist|
* [[Turing Award]] (1991)<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Milner | first1 = R. | doi = 10.1145/151233.151240 | title = Elements of interaction: Turing award lecture | journal = Communications of the ACM | volume = 36 | pages = 78–89 | year = 1993 | doi-access = free }}</ref>
* [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]]
* [[Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society|DFBCS]]
* [[Royal Society of Edinburgh|FRSE]]
* Foreign Associate, NAE
}}
| religion          = 
}}

'''Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner''' {{postnominals|FRS}} (13 January 1934 – 20 March 2010) was a [[British people|British]] [[computer scientist]], and a [[Turing Award]] winner.<ref name="times">[http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7081867.ece Obituary – Professor Robin Milner: computer scientist]{{dead link|date=September 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}, ''[[The Times]]'', 31 March 2010.</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Hoffmann | first1 = L. | title = Robin Milner: the elegant pragmatist| doi = 10.1145/1743546.1743556 | journal = Communications of the ACM | volume = 53 | issue = 6 | pages = 20 | year = 2010 | doi-access = free }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Milner | first1 = R. | title = Is Computing an Experimental Science? | doi = 10.1057/jit.1987.12 | journal = Journal of Information Technology | volume = 2 | issue = 2 | pages = 58–66 | year = 1987 | s2cid = 10413382 }}</ref><ref>http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/misc/obituaries/milner Cambridge University – Obituary</ref><ref>http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rm135/ Milner's Cambridge homepage</ref><ref name="acm">{{ACMPortal|id=81332515695}}</ref>

==Life, education and career==

Milner was born in [[Yealmpton]], near [[Plymouth]], [[England]] into a military family. He gained a [[King's Scholar]]ship to [[Eton College]] in 1947, and was awarded the [[George Tomline (politician)#Tomline Prize|Tomline Prize]] (the highest prize in Mathematics at Eton) in 1952. Subsequently, he served in the [[Royal Engineers]], attaining the rank of Second Lieutenant.  He then enrolled at [[King's College, Cambridge]], graduating in 1957.<ref>[http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/mfb21/interviews/milner/ Interview with Robin Milner by Martin Berger].</ref> Milner first worked as a schoolteacher then as a [[programmer]] at [[Ferranti]], before entering academia at [[City University, London]], then [[Swansea University]], [[Stanford University]], and from 1973 at the [[University of Edinburgh]], where he was a co-founder of the [[Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science]] (LFCS). He returned to [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]] as the head of the [[Cambridge University Computer Laboratory|Computer Laboratory]] in 1995 from which he eventually stepped down, although he was still at the laboratory. From 2009, Milner was a Scottish Informatics & Computer Science Alliance Advanced Research Fellow and held (part-time) the chair of computer science at the [[University of Edinburgh]].

Milner died of a [[heart attack]] on 20 March 2010 in Cambridge.<ref name="times" /><ref>[http://lists.seas.upenn.edu/pipermail/types-list/2010/001478.html Newsgroup message] informing on Milner's death.</ref> His wife, Lucy, died shortly before he did.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/robin-milner-pioneering-computer-scientist-1943933.html|work=[[The Independent]]|title= Robin Milner: Pioneering computer scientist|date=2010-04-14}}</ref>

==Contributions==

Milner is generally regarded as having made three major contributions to [[computer science]]. He developed [[Logic for Computable Functions]] (LCF), one of the first tools for [[automated theorem proving]]. The language he developed for LCF, [[ML programming language|ML]], was the first language with [[polymorphism (computer science)|polymorphic]] [[type inference]], type-safe [[exception handling]], and an automatically inferred type system, using [[algorithm W]]. Milner also developed two theoretical frameworks for analyzing [[concurrent systems]], the [[calculus of communicating systems]] (CCS), and its successor, the [[pi-calculus|{{pi}}-calculus]].

At the time of his death, he was working on [[bigraphs]], a formalism for [[ubiquitous computing]] subsuming CCS and the {{pi}}-calculus.<ref name="bigraphs">{{cite web |url= http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rm135/uam-theme.html|title=The Bigraphical Model |first=Robin |last=Milner |publisher=University of Cambridge |access-date=7 November 2009 |quote=Bigraphs [...] are proposed as a '''Ubiquitous Abstract Machine''', playing the foundational role for ubiquitous computing that the von Neumann machine has played for sequential computing. }}</ref> He is also credited for rediscovering the [[Hindley–Milner type system]].

==Honours and awards==

He was made a Fellow of the [[Royal Society]] and a Distinguished Fellow of the [[British Computer Society]] in 1988. Milner received the [[Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]] [[Turing Award]] in 1991.  In 1994 he was inducted as a [[Fellow]] of the [[Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]].  In 2004, the [[Royal Society of Edinburgh]] awarded Milner with a Royal Medal for his "bringing about public benefits on a global scale".  In 2008, he was elected a Foreign Associate of the [[National Academy of Engineering]] for "fundamental contributions to computer science, including the development of LCF, ML, CCS, and the {{pi}}-calculus."[http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=02082008]

The Royal Society [[Milner Award]]<ref>{{cite web |title=The Royal Society Milner Award and Lecture {{!}} Royal Society |url=https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/awards/milner-award/ |website=The Royal Society |access-date=12 May 2021 |language=en-gb}}</ref>
and the [[Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]] [[SIGPLAN]] Robin Milner Young Researcher Award<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sigplan.org/Awards/Milner/|title=SIGPLAN Robin Milner Young Researcher Award|publisher=[[SIGPLAN]]|year=2012}}</ref> are both named after him.

== Selected publications ==
<!-- [http://www.diku.dk/undervisning/2006-2007/2006-2007_b2_246/milner78theory.pdf A Theory of Type Polymorphism in Programming, Robin Milner, Journal of Computer and System Sciences, August 1980] -->

* ''A Calculus of Communicating Systems'', Robin Milner. [[Springer-Verlag]] ([[LNCS]] 92), 1980. {{ISBN|3-540-10235-3}}
* ''Communication and Concurrency'', Robin Milner. [[Prentice Hall International Series in Computer Science]], 1989. {{ISBN|0-13-115007-3}}
* ''The Definition of Standard ML'', Robin Milner, [[Mads Tofte]], Robert Harper, [[MIT Press]] 1990
* ''Commentary on Standard ML'', Robin Milner, [[Mads Tofte]], MIT Press 1991. {{ISBN|0-262-63137-7}}
* ''The Definition of Standard ML'' (Revised), Robin Milner, [[Mads Tofte]], Robert Harper, David MacQueen, MIT Press 1997. {{ISBN|0-262-63181-4}}
* ''Communicating and Mobile Systems: the {{pi}}-Calculus'', Robin Milner. [[Cambridge University Press]], 1999. {{ISBN|0-521-65869-1}}
* ''The Space and Motion of Communicating Agents'', Robin Milner, [[Cambridge University Press]], 2009. {{ISBN|978-0-521-73833-0}}
See also: [https://dblp.org/pid/m/RobinMilner.html Publications by Robin Milner] in [[DBLP]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* [https://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/robin-milner-geek-of-the-week/ An interview with Robin Milner, January 2010].
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20050913044150/http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=3797&ttype=2 Proof, Language, and Interaction: Essays in Honour of Robin Milner]'', edited by [[Gordon Plotkin]], Colin Stirling and [[Mads Tofte]]. [[The MIT Press]], 2000. {{ISBN|0-262-16188-5}}.
* The Royal Society of Edinburgh: ''Royal Gold Medals for Outstanding Achievement'' (2004 press release).  http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/rse_press/2004/medals.htm
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051126170930/http://www.fairdene.com/picalculus/robinmilner.html A brief biography of and speech by Robin Milner]
*[http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/gdp/publications/Robin_sci_biog.pdf A Brief Scientific Biography of Robin Milner] (from Proof, Language, and Interaction: Essays in Honour of Robin Milner)

== External links ==
* [http://www.cs.unibo.it/icalp/Lauree_milner.html Address in Bologna], a short address by Milner on receiving Laurea Honoris Causa in computer science from the [[University of Bologna]], summarising some of his main works, 9 July 1997
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110720222451/http://www.diffusion.ens.fr/data/audio/2007_12_10_milner.mp3 Is informatics a science?], conference at [[École normale supérieure (Paris)]] (ENS), 10 December 2007

{{ML programming}}
{{Milner Award laureates}}
{{EATCS Award laureates}}
{{Turing award}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Milner, Robin}}
[[Category:1934 births]]
[[Category:2010 deaths]]
[[Category:People from South Hams (district)]]
[[Category:People educated at Eton College]]
[[Category:Alumni of King's College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:British computer scientists]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Turing Award laureates]]
[[Category:Academics of City, University of London]]
[[Category:Academics of Swansea University]]
[[Category:Stanford University School of Engineering faculty]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of Edinburgh]]
[[Category:Formal methods people]]
[[Category:Members of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory]]
[[Category:1994 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery]]
[[Category:Programming language designers]]
[[Category:Programming language researchers]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh]]
[[Category:Fellows of the British Computer Society]]
[[Category:Royal Engineers officers]]
[[Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Computer science writers]]
[[Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Engineering]]