(Died: December 21, 2003)
Mathematician, Editor of The Toth-Maatian Review
Interests: Mathematical Physics, Chemistry Age: 78
Harold Willis Milnes was born and grew up in Detroit, where he was educated at home by his parents and studied operatic singing as a young man. He earned his MA (1952) and PhD (1955) in mathematics from Wayne State University. He then worked for various institutions including General Motors, Boeing, and NASA, and eventually became a professor of mathematics at Texas Tech University. After retiring from teaching, he continued his intellectual pursuits with scientific experiments and publication of a unique journal, the Toth-Maatian Review, which from 1981 to 1994 offered freedom of a scientific and literary expression to intellectuals around the world. His interests included gardening, metal and woodworking, electronics, laboratory experimentation in chemistry, sculpture.
"Harold was a dissident's dissident, who "wore no man's collar." The Toth-Maatian Review, which he edited and published almost to the time of his death, was like no other journal. It had room for poetry, original short stories, essays, scientific and mathematical papers, and Harold's own "Tales of Toth", a serialized fiction presenting in an original format his views on what is wrong with modern science. (Toth [Thoth] was the Egyptian god of wisdom and magic, Maat the goddess of truth, etc.) Here he exposed also, among other things, his own 'elementary' theory of gravitation. His editorial policy was unique. He worked without referees and, as far as I know, never denied publication to anyone who seriously sought it. The dire degradation of quality predicted by established editorial dogma never happened... Many original ideas in science originating from around the world first appeared in T.-M.R. - which will remain Harold Milnes's monument." - From In Memoriam by T. E. Phipps, Jr. [Galilean Electrodynamics, V17, N3, p. 42 (2006)].
Obituary: Dr. Harold Willis Milnes
