Gerald Whitrow
Timely philosopher, 1913-2000


A mathematician and philosopher who devoted much of his life to pondering the nature of time, Gerald James Whitrow has died in London. He was 87. 

Whitrow was fond of telling a story about the Russian poet Samuel Marshak visiting London before 1914. His English was imperfect, and he asked a man in the street, "Please, what is time?" The passer-by answered: "That's a big question. Why ask me?" 

Whitrow himself did not have an absolute answer to the question, which bridges disciplines from mathematics to cosmology to biology, history and psychology. But by combining prodigious scholarship from the ancient Greeks to modern physicists, he argued persuasively in more than 100 academic papers and a string of books that an integrated, interdisciplinary understanding of time should be possible. 

But can time be said to have a beginning, a direction and an end? His assiduous scholarship suggested that the answer might depend on whom you ask. 

He concluded in his most influential book, The Nature of Time, that a concept of time was fundamentally necessary. Time, he said, wasn't "a mysterious illusion of the intellect" but "an essential feature of the universe".

In 1969, Whitrow became the first president of the newly founded International Society for the Study of Time, which provided a framework for interdisciplinary discussions of the subject. 


Gerald James Whitrow was born in Dorset. When he was four, the family moved to London. Though they were poor, he won a series of scholarships, including one to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he won highest honours in mathematics. At 24 he was named a lecturer in mathematics, a feat so prodigious that it prompted an article in the Daily Mirror. 

His doctoral thesis at Christ Church concerned kinematic relativity, a subject created by his adviser, E.A. Milne, and derived from Einstein. It uses the discipline of cosmology to deal with the motions of objects. 

He moved on to study the philosophy and mathematics of time and motion. The first of his 10 books was The Structure of the Universe in 1949; the last was Time in History in 1988. 

Some of his musings could be simultaneously provocative and playful. In The Nature of Time, he noted that the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece believed that the planets periodically return to the same relative positions they occupied at the beginning of time. 




In 1945 he was appointed a lecturer at Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, where he remained for the rest of his career. He lived in Wimbledon, was active in London academic society and clubs and loved opera. 

Known for his clear, booming voice, he was frequently heard on radio. Friends love to tell of the time he gave three talks on the nature of time for the BBC, only to have them broadcast out of order. They had to be repeated. 

Whitrow came across as the proverbial dignified Englishman. But he also had a wry sense of humour. He liked to recall the time he mentioned his friend Karl Popper, the philosopher, at a party, saying, "I am going to see Popper tomorrow." A guest replied, "Good heavens, is your father still alive?"

Whitrow is survived by his wife of 53 years, Magda