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Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner

Gregory Donelan II. CSCE 221H-200. Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner. Early Life. Was Born in Yealmpton , England on January 13 th , 1934 Won a scholarship to Eton College in 1946, where he excelled in mathematics Won a scholarship to King’s College in Cambridge in 1952

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Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner

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  1. Gregory Donelan II CSCE 221H-200 Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner

  2. Early Life • Was Born in Yealmpton, England on January 13th, 1934 • Won a scholarship to Eton College in 1946, where he excelled in mathematics • Won a scholarship to King’s College in Cambridge in 1952 • In 1956 he took a course in computer programming, but he said "Programming was not a very beautiful thing. I resolved I would never go near a computer in my life.“ and stopped pursuing it.

  3. Family Life • He played the Oboe, and ended up meeting his wife, Lucy Moor, because of it. • Lucy was a violin teacher • They had three children, two sons named Gabriel and Barney, and a daughter named Chloe. • In 1992, Gabriel Died. • His wife Lucy also died, in 2010 a few weeks before he passed away.

  4. His path into Computer Science • In 1960, he joined Ferranti’s computer division to be a programmer. (Ferranti is an electrical engineering and equipment firm) • There he contributed to development of languages such as Algol and Atlas Autocode. • From 1963 until 1968, he lectured on computing and math at City University, London. During his time there, he developed an interest in AI. • In 1968 he took up a senior research assistantship at University College, Swansea, to work with David Cooper, a prominent AI researcher. • This was followed by a research post with the AI project at Stanford University.

  5. LCF (Logic of Computable Functions) • A mechanization of Dana Scott’s LCF • Was a proof-assistant • It allows the user to interactively “generate formal proofs about computable functions and functionals over a variety of domains.” • Included a sub-goaling facility that allowed the user to divide the search for a proof into searches for smaller sub-proofs, • machine kept track of how to put the pieces back together to construct the full proof. • Also included a simplification mechanism that did a lot of the more routine calculations in proofs.

  6. LCF (continued) • Was easy to improve upon thanks to this architecture, because you just replace the old parts or build upon them. • Proof patterns could be coded as “tactics” which could be used in other proofs. (IE: an induction proof) • Automated several steps and allowed common patterns to be reused • Served as a model for many later proof assistants for a variety of logics

  7. ML (Meta Language) • Was the first language to include polymorphic type inference with a type-safe exception-handling mechanism • Allowed the use of another proof or tactic if one failed, via the exception mechanism • Bridged theory and practice

  8. CCS (Calculus of Communicating Systems) • Set a ‘general theory of concurrency’ for communicating systems • Based upon his ideas on parallel programs • Deals with the notion of “observational equivalence” • If you get two programs that give the same output, they should be the same program. • Also, if you get two programs that give different output, they should be different programs

  9. Turing Award 1991 “For three distinct and complete achievements: • LCF, the mechanization of Scott's Logic of Computable Functions, probably the first theoretically based yet practical tool for machine assisted proof construction; • ML, the first language to include polymorphic type inference together with a type-safe exception-handling mechanism; • CCS, a general theory of concurrency. In addition, he formulated and strongly advanced full abstraction, the study of the relationship between operational and denotational semantics.”** ** http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/milner_1569367.cfm

  10. Late Years and Legacy • Won the Technical Award from the British Computer Society (1987) for his work on ML • Elected a fellow of the Royal Society (1988) • Turing Award (1991) • Milner died on March 20th, 2010 • Left behind many new concepts, some of which are: • Pi-Calculus • Base work for Bi-Graph Calculus

  11. Sources • http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/robin-milner-pioneering-computer-scientist-1943933.html • http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/milner_1569367.cfm • http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/apr/01/robin-milner-obituary

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