Clive William Kilmister (3 January 1924 – 2 May 2010) was a British mathematician who specialised in the mathematical foundations of physics, especially quantum mechanics and relativity. Kilmister attended

Queen Mary College , mottoeng = With united powers , established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College , type = Public researc ...

London for both his under- and postgraduate degrees. His 1950 PhD on ''The Use of Quaternions in Wave-Tensor Calculus'' related to Arthur Eddington's work, and was supervised by cosmologist

George C. McVittie George Cunliffe McVittie (1904–1988) was a British mathematician and cosmologist. He is best known for his contributions towards radio astronomy. Life McVittie was born on 5 June 1904 in Smyrna in Turkey, where his father, Frank S. McVittie, ...

, who was one of Eddington's students. His own students included Brian Tupper (1959, King's College London, now professor emeritus of general relativity and cosmology at University of New Brunswick Fredericto

, Samuel Edgar (1977,

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

), and Tony Crilly (reader in mathematical sciences at Middlesex University). Kilmister was elected as a member of the London Mathematical Society during his doctoral studies (17 March 1949). Upon graduation, he began his career as an Assistant Lecturer in the Mathematics Department of King's College in 1950. The entirety of his academic career was spent at King's. In 1954, Kilmister founded the King's Gravitational Theory Group, in concert with

Hermann Bondi Sir Hermann Bondi (1 November 1919 – 10 September 2005) was an Austrian- British mathematician and cosmologist. He is best known for developing the steady state model of the universe with Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold as an alternative to the ...

and Felix Pirani, which focused on Einstein's theory of general relativity. At retirement, Kilmister was both a Professor of Mathematics and Head of the King's College Mathematics Department.

Honors, positions, and titles

*Member, London Mathematical Society, 1949–2010 *President, British Society for the History of Mathematics, 1974–76 *President,

British Society for the Philosophy of Science The British Society for the Philosophy of Science (BSPS) is a philosophy, philosophical learned society, society based in the United Kingdom that aims to further the philosophy of science, and which manages the ''British Journal for the Philosophy o ...

, 1981–82 *President,

Mathematical Association The Mathematical Association is a professional society concerned with mathematics education in the UK. History It was founded in 1871 as the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching and renamed to the Mathematical Association in ...

, 1979–1980 *

Gresham Professor of Geometry The Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, gives free educational lectures to the general public. The college was founded for this purpose in 1597, when it appointed seven professors; this has since increased to ten and in addition the ...

, 1972–1988 *Committee Member,

International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation The International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation (ISGRG) is a learned society established in 1971 with the goal to promote research on general relativity (GR) and gravitation. To that end, it encourages communication between relativi ...

, 1971–1974 *Founding Member, Alternative Natural Philosophy Association

Publications (arranged by year of publication)

*"Eddington's Statistical Theory (Oxford Mathematical Monographs) " (1962) *"Hamiltonian Dynamics" (1964) *"The Environment in Modern Physics: A Study in Relativistic Mechanics" (1965) *"Men of Physics: Sir Arthur Eddington" (1966) *"Rational Mechanics" (1966) *''Language, Logic, and Mathematics'' (1967) *''Exploring University Mathematics 2: Lectures Given at Bedford College''. (1968) *''Nature of the Universe (World of Science) '' (October 18, 1971) *''General Theory of Relativity (Selected Readings in Physics) '' (November 1973) *''Relativistic Mechanics, Time and Inertia (Fundamental Theories of Physics) '' (31 December 1984) *''Disequilibrium and Self-Organisation'' (1 July 1986) *"Russell (Philosophers in Context" (21 August 1986) *''Radiation from Relativistic Electrons (American Institute of Physics Translation Series) '' (October 1986) *''Special Relativity for Physicists'' (December 1987) *''Schrödinger: Centenary Celebration of a Polymath'' (31 March 1989) *''Combinatorial Physics'' (October 1995) *''Lagrangian Dynamics: An Introduction for Students'' (31 December 1995) *"Special Theory of Relativity" (January 2000) *''Eddington's Search for a Fundamental Theory: A Key to the Universe'' (7 July 2005) *''The Origin of Discrete Particles (Series on Knots and Everything) '' (7 August 2009)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kilmister, Clive W. 1924 births 2010 deaths 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians Professors of Gresham College