Edgar Silinsh was born the 4th child in a family of prosperous farmer Aleksandrs Siliņš (1875—1934) on the "Veclapsas" farmstead in Līgatne municipality of Riga district.
Due to the start of World War II and the death of his mother in 1943, E. Silinsh was forced to discontinue his education; nevertheless, in 1946 he took secondary school exams and enrolled at the Faculty of Chemistry of the State University of Latvia (SUL).
After that, E. Silinsh worked as a laborant for 14 years, and for last 12 of these he was employed at the Central Laboratory of the Riga Plant of Electrical Machine Building (Latvian: Rīgas Elektromašīnbūves rūpnīca, RER).
[1] During the "Khrushchev Thaw", Edgar Silinsh was finally able to enroll (in 1957) and graduate (in 1961) the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Latvia.
In 1962, he began his extramural studies for the Candidate of Sciences degree (equivalent to the Western PhD) at the S. Vavilov State Optical Institute in Leningrad and defended in June 1965.
His Candidate thesis topic was influence of plasma and contact discharge on the emission spectra of metal atoms (doctoral advisor K.
[1] Until 1975, a new model was developed under his lead, describing the physical nature of local structure-determined charge-carrier trapping centers in organic molecular crystals.
In the year following the death of E. Silinsh, Jumava publishing house put in print his collection of essays on the matter, named "The Quest for the Great Truths" (Latvian: Lielo patiesību meklējumi).