Milutin Milankovic
Encyclopedia
Milutin Milanković was a Serbian
geophysicist
and civil engineer
, best known for his theory of ice age
s, suggesting a relationship between Earth
's long-term climate change
s and periodic changes in its orbit
, now known as Milankovitch cycles
. Milanković gave two fundamental contributions to global science. The first contribution is the "Canon of the Earth’s Insolation”, which characterizes the climates of all the planets of the Solar system
. The second contribution is the explanation of climate change on the Earth
caused by changes in the position of the Earth in comparison to the Sun
. This explained the ice ages occurring in the geological past of the Earth, as well as the climate changes on the Earth which can be expected in the future.
, Orthodox parents in the village of Dalj
, Austria-Hungary
, today Croatia
. He was the eldest of the seven children of a Serbian family of local merchants and landlords. Being of sensitive health, he received his elementary education at home (in “the classroom without walls”), learning from his father Milan and from the private teachers, but also from numerous relatives and friends of the family, some of whom were renowned philosophers, inventors and poets. Milutin’s parents discovered his talent for mathematics in his early age. In addition to mathematics, his father explained to him various figures and bodies, taught him to measure and copy them and read epic poetry to him. Milutin’s father died on the 27th of October 1886 and from that time on his uncle, Vasа Muačević, took all care of him and continued to support him in everything until the end of his life. In his native Dalj, Milutin finished private primary school and governesses taught him at home. Milanković attended the high school, Realka, in Osijek
.
Already at the end of his first semester, Milanković became the best student in his class and kept the position until the end. At that time, Milanković met a real engineer and inventor, his uncle Andrа Radovanović whose inventions in the Skoda
cannon factory in Pilzen brought him world recognition. Milanković would devour his stories about an engineer’s profession and life. In the Realka high school in Osijek, the teacher of mathematics wasthe young, 28 years old Serbian, Doctor of Philosophy, mathematician Vladimir Varićak who noticed Milutin’s special inclination to mathematics. He had a great influence in Milutin’s choice of scientific vocation. Milankovitch graduated in 1896 as the best pupil of the Realka High School in Osijek and participated, as a representative of Serbian high school graduated students from the Austrian monarchy, at the meeting of all graduate students in the Kingdom of Serbia
.
The Milanković family wanted to direct Milutin to some high agricultural school because it was necessary to secure someone to manage their spacious land. Milutin himself wanted to study electrical engineering, but since there was no such school in Vienna, he opted for studying civil engineering. Milutin’s cousin Veselin who had left for Vienna the year before to study engineering, greatly influenced Milutin’s life decision to continue his education in Vienna. Milutin left for Vienna
with Veselin on the 5th of October 1896.
The professor of the science of building bridges, Johann Brick, the top expert of Viennese Mechanics of that time, taught the most important subject of the fifth school year. In Brick’s teaching, young Milanković found strong inspiration for later scientific work. Milanković successfully graduated in civil engineering in 1902. After completing one year of military service in the Hapsburg monarchy, Milanković returned to Vienna in 1903 with the intention of continuing doctoral studies. Milanković earned his PhD in 1904, when he was 25, with the thesis entitled „Theory of Pressure Curves”, or in the original „Beitrag zur Theorie der Druck-kurven”. After officially receiving his PhD diploma, Milanković decided to commence working in some major construction company.
, often entrusted complex construction to this young civil engineer
and doctor of technical sciences. Similarly, Milanković was assigned to design a factory, not an easy job. The project was more complex than it would be today because in that time there was no mathematical formula by which to determine the precise dimensions of the reinforcement beams and bearing plates.
Milanković, convinced of the validity of the general theory of elasticity, which he had founded in his doctoral dissertation, worked long and hard on this calculation; it was later published in the scientific magazine entitled "Contribution to the theory of reinforced-concrete beams." Solutions which he is offered in these works attracted the attention of construction engineers, especially designers, and very quickly were incorporated into books and construction manuals. Milanković was the first expert to undertake construction mathematical modeling, leaving geometric (graphic) design methods that were very popular in that time. The result was particularly evident in the extraordinary design of a reinforced-concrete aqueduct for a hydroelectric power plant in Sebeș
, in Transylvania
, which was Milanković drew at the beginning of his career.
In just five years at Vienna construction companies, Milanković gained a great reputation among engineers, because of the number of objects he designed. In addition to the aqueduct in Sebeș (which resembled the ancient bridges), he designed the aqueducts in Semmering
and Piten (now Austria
), bridges in Kranj
(Slovenia
), Banhildi (Hungary
), Isla
(Austria), and a new Krup
metal factory of in Berdorf
. As a representative of the mentioned company, he participated in the construction of a collector within the Belgrade
sewage system on the banks of the Sava River
.
In 1908 an Annexation crisis
between Austria-Hungary and Serbia erupted. Citizens of Serbian nationality in Austria-Hungary, especially the intellectuals, suffered great pressure from the authoritarian government. Although engineering jobs were making good income for Milanković, he experienced a growing desire to engage in science while undertaking only freelance jobs in civil engineering.
The year 1909 was crucial for Milutin Milankovitć. Milanković was invited by the Philosophical Faculty of Belgrade University to move to Belgrade and become a Professor at the Department for Applied Mathematics
, within which were rational and celestial
mechanics and theoretical physics
. He was elected associate professor. Leaving Vienna, Milutin Milanković maintained friendly ties with numerous Austrian scientists and institutions with which he exchanged scientific information and ideas. Whenever the circumstances permitted, he would take the opportunity to visit Vienna and other places in Austria, to meet friends and collaborators, to participate in the work of important scientific gatherings or to participate in major construction works as a consultant or designer.
Milanković continued design and constructors jobs when he moved to the Kingdom of Serbia
and, with engineer Petar Putnik, school friend from the University of Vienna and the owner of a construction company, was retained to design the bridge on the railway line Niš
- Knjaževac
. His friend's idea was to build for that railway line, for the first time in Serbia, bridges of reinforced concrete, each spanning 30 feet between natural supports on the rocky shores. Milanković liked this idea very much and quickly performed a static calculation that would apply to all bridges, which later was the main reason for the Serbian government to entrust work to the company Petar Putnik in 1912.
and the Kingdom of Serbia. Milanković’s book entitled "The schedule sun radiation on the earth's surface" was published in Belgrade on June 5, 1913.
Next year, in 1914, was published Milanković’s scientific work entitled "About the issue of the astronomical theory of ice ages". In that same year, Milanković traveled to Dalj
, in Austria-Hungary, to marry Christine Topuzović in her native village. At the time of the July crisis with Serbia, the Austro-Hungarian authoritarian power continued pressure on the Serbs. That crisis was to lead to the outbreak of World War I
. However, after the wedding, Austria-Hungary authorities arrested him as a citizen of Serbia and confined him to prison in Karlovac
and later in Osijek
. From this prison he was freed with the help of his wife Christine, uncle Vasa, and Emanuel Cuber, a professor at the University of Vienna, but freed on condition that he stay away from the border with Serbia. The political leader of Serbs in Austria-Hungary, Svetozar Pribićević
, took an interest in his case and was able to arrange him exile to the north of Hungary. Once there, he was interned by the Austro-Hungarian
army in Neusiedl am See
and later in Budapest
, where he was obliged to appear every day at the police station.
Milutin Milanković spent four years in Budapest, almost the entire war.
Throughout his internment in Budapest he devoted his time to a field now known as the Milankovitch cycles
and, by the end of the war, he had finished a monograph which was published in 1920, in the publications of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
, by Gauthier-Villars in Paris
under the title Théorie mathématique des phénomènes thermiques produits par la radiation solaire (Mathematical theory of thermal phenomena caused by solar radiation).
In Budapest he met the Library
director of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Koloman von Celia who, since he himself was a great lover of mathematics, arranged for Milanković to perform scientific research at the Central Meteorological Institute. During this two-year appointment for development of mathematical theories related to the prediction of climate change on Mars
, he published a scientific work entitled "Researching of the climate planet Mars" in 1916. So while war raged in Europe, Milanković studied the climate on Mars, which aimed to reveal whether organic life on this planet would be possible. His calculation of the amount of insolation and mean annual temperature of the Mars surface and lower layers of the atmosphere was confirmed many decades later, when the first spacecraft
to Mars landed. In fact Milankvoć already had laid the foundations in the modeling of climate on Earth and on other planets.
After World War I, Milanković with his family on 19 March 1919, returned to Belgrade. After returning to his homeland (now the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) Milanković continued his professorial career, becoming a full professor the University of Belgrade. In addition to scientific and professorial work Milanković continued to work as a civil engineer. Owners of construction companies engaged him, as very good engineers were paid well, about building a large tobacco factory in Niš
, then the large tobacco warehouses in Skopje
, Veles
, Kavadarci
, and Čapljina
, and facilities of the National Bank including the factory for the production of banknotes in Belgrade and its branch offices in Skopje and Bitola
.
In parallel with the scientific research of the solar system, Milanković engaged in its popularization, so the in period from 1925 to 1928 he wrote the popular-science book "Through Space and Centuries - Letters of an Astronomer", written in the form of letters to an unknown girl. In this popular book, readers travel on water, at the time formation and cooling of the Earth (during the time of the mythological Titan
), then through the ancient civilizations where he introduces them to the famous ancient and renaissance thinkers, then to his contemporaries, and then to the mathematical theory of climate with its cycle of ice ages. He takes his readers to the Moon, Mars, Venus and other planets of the solar system, where they meet with the complex problems of celestial mechanics. This popular book (for ordinary people) was published in 1928.[3]
The results set forth in his work won him a considerable reputation in the scientific world, notably for his "curve of insolation
at the Earth's surface". This solar curve was not really accepted until 1924, when the great meteorologist and climatologist Wladimir Köppen
, with his son-in-law Alfred Wegener
, introduced the curve in their work entitled Climates of the geological past.
After these first tributes, Milanković was invited, in 1927, to co-operate in two important publications: the first was a handbook on climatology (Handbuch der Klimatologie) and the second a handbook on geophysics (Gutenberg
's Handbuch der Geophysik). The former, for which he wrote the introduction Mathematische Klimalehre und astronomische Theorie der Klimaschwankungen (Mathematical science of climate and astronomical theory of the variations of the climate), was published in 1930 in German
, and in 1939 was translated into Russian
. It further developed the theory of planetary climates with special reference to the Earth
.
Milanković derived a mathematical formula that can calculate to what extent the ice cover will react to a particular change of solar insolation of the Earth. He managed to establish the mathematical relationship between the summer insolation and the altitude of the border line of snow cover and thus to know how the snow cover will increase as a result of any given change in summer insolation. These results were published in 1938 in a scientific article entitled "New results of the astronomical theory of climate change." In fact with these results modern geologists received a chart
from which they could discover the border altitude ice cover (glacial) at any time in the last 650,000 years.
For a second textbook, Milanković wrote four sections developing and formulating his theory of the secular motion of the Earth's poles
, and his theory of glacial periods (Milankovitch cycles
), which was built on earlier work by James Croll
. Milanković was able to improve upon Croll's work partly by the use of improved calculations of the Earth's orbit then recently published by Ludwig Pilgrim, a pioneer in colorimetry, in 1904. Fully aware that his theory of solar radiation had been successfully completed, but that the papers dealing with this theory were dispersed in separate publications, he decided to collect and publish them under a single cover.
) came about.
In arranging and writing the "Canon," Milanković spent two years. The manuscript was submitted to print on April 2, 1941 - four days before the attack of Nazi Germany and its allies to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
. On April 6, 1941 beginning with bombing Belgrade
. During the bombing the printing factory and all the books were destroyed, except one book that Milanković had taken for himself on the first day of printing. After the successful occupation of Serbia, in May 1941, in front of the Milanković house in Belgrade parked a car from which emerged two German officers. These were geology students of Milanković′s friend Wolfgang Selera. Thereupon he decided that the only remaining book be sent to a friend in Freiburg
.
Even before the war, Milanković had become interested in the path of a projectile
in or near orbit
, so he had performed mathematical calculations relating latitude
and orbit. So far there is not known to have been any Milankovic scientific paper used in the V-2
project, which is the father of every modern space program.
"Kanon" was issued in the edition of the Royal Serbian Academy
, 626 pages in quarto, and was printed in German
as Kanon der Erdbestrahlung und seine Anwendung auf das Eiszeitenproblem, as soon as possible after it came to the attention of European and international public experts.
During the German occupation of Serbia (1941–1944), Milanković withdrew from public life and decided to write a history of his life going beyond scientific matters. His autobiography would be published after the war, entitled "Memories, experiences and knowledge - from 1909 to 1944" in Belgrade in 1952. Milutin Milanković died in Belgrade
in 1958.
Program for Scientific Translations and was published by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Science Foundation
, Washington, D.C.
.
In 1972, based on deep-sea cores, scientists compiled time scale climatic events of the past 700,000 years. They performed the analysis of the cores and four years later (1976) came to the conclusion that in the past 500,000 years climate has changed depending on the inclination
of Earth's axis
of rotation
and precession
(under that the term is understood a phenomenon which occurs because the Earth on its way around the Sun behaves like a tern (also known as a top or a gyroscope) which is slowly spinning and whose axis through the time (known as a *Great year
) describes the surface cone
),), as concluded Miutin Milanković by in 1924 by means of complex calculations (only with pencil, paper and ingenious knowledge of mathematics
). At NASA, in the edition of "On the Shoulders of Giants", Milanković has been ranked among the top ten minds of all time in the sciences of the Earth! That's why his picture is located in the Museum in Washington next to Newton
, Kepler, Galileo, and Copernicus.
is so far the most accurate calendar. The Gregorian calendar
has two big drawbacks: for the year were taken 365 and 1/4 days, and 235 lunar months is exactly 19 solar years. A leap year is one whose number is divisible by 4 without remainder, with certain exceptions. Going back to the Julian calendar, Milanković annulled 13 days which had arisen because every fourth year had been a leap year and that had put the calendar ahead of Earth’s orbital period, called a tropical year
. Thus the Milanković calendar was put on the same date as the Gregorian.
The Gregorian calendar
avoids some but not all of the unneeded leap years by letting a century year be a leap year only if both the number of years and the number of centuries are divisible by 4 without remainder. Under Milanković's calendar
, a century year will be leap only if the number of centuries when divided by 9 gives a remainder of 2 or 6. All other century years are simple, which provides total precision up to 2,800 years, and until then there can be no disagreement with the current Gregorian calendar. Beyond then, due to its more precise century years rule, Milankovic's calendar should be corrected only after 28,800 years. Although it was accepted at the Pan-Orthodox Congress May 30, 1923rd in Constantinople
, it was never implemented in practice. This is probably because Soviet
policies prevented some of the Orthodox churches from participating, preventing consensus. The Milanković calendar is in fact the most accurate calendar in the world today.
Milanković also published a three volume autobiography in Serbian, Recollection, Experiences and Vision, which was never translated. For this reason his son, Vasko Milanković, has completed a biography: My father, Milutin Milanković.
Milanković was elected a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
in 1920, a full member in 1924, a corresponding member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1925, and a member of the German Academy of Naturalists "Leopoldina" in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
; he was also a member of many scientific societies and related organizations, both in Yugoslavia and abroad.
, and his work was titled "The Babylonian tower modern techniques" (1955). At the end of the work Milanković concludes about "Babylonian tower of concrete to the sky": that base includes surface of our Earth is 1.4 km. So that really elevation above ground level is 20.25 kilometers. That height we can not exceed. A Construction static stops us on this intractable border.
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
geophysicist
Geophysics
Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...
and civil engineer
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
, best known for his theory of ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
s, suggesting a relationship between Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
's long-term climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
s and periodic changes in its orbit
Earth's orbit
In astronomy, the Earth's orbit is the motion of the Earth around the Sun, at an average distance of about 150 million kilometers, every 365.256363 mean solar days .A solar day is on average 24 hours; it takes 365.256363 of these to orbit the sun once in the sense of returning...
, now known as Milankovitch cycles
Milankovitch cycles
Milankovitch theory describes the collective effects of changes in the Earth's movements upon its climate, named after Serbian civil engineer and mathematician Milutin Milanković, who worked on it during First World War internment...
. Milanković gave two fundamental contributions to global science. The first contribution is the "Canon of the Earth’s Insolation”, which characterizes the climates of all the planets of the Solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
. The second contribution is the explanation of climate change on the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
caused by changes in the position of the Earth in comparison to the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
. This explained the ice ages occurring in the geological past of the Earth, as well as the climate changes on the Earth which can be expected in the future.
Early years
Born to SerbianSerbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
, Orthodox parents in the village of Dalj
Dalj
Dalj is a village on the Danube in eastern Croatia, near the confluence of the Drava and Danube, on the border with Serbia. It is connected with the D519 highway and administratively located in the municipality of Erdut, Osijek-Baranja County.-References:...
, Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, today Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
. He was the eldest of the seven children of a Serbian family of local merchants and landlords. Being of sensitive health, he received his elementary education at home (in “the classroom without walls”), learning from his father Milan and from the private teachers, but also from numerous relatives and friends of the family, some of whom were renowned philosophers, inventors and poets. Milutin’s parents discovered his talent for mathematics in his early age. In addition to mathematics, his father explained to him various figures and bodies, taught him to measure and copy them and read epic poetry to him. Milutin’s father died on the 27th of October 1886 and from that time on his uncle, Vasа Muačević, took all care of him and continued to support him in everything until the end of his life. In his native Dalj, Milutin finished private primary school and governesses taught him at home. Milanković attended the high school, Realka, in Osijek
Osijek
Osijek is the fourth largest city in Croatia with a population of 83,496 in 2011. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja county...
.
Already at the end of his first semester, Milanković became the best student in his class and kept the position until the end. At that time, Milanković met a real engineer and inventor, his uncle Andrа Radovanović whose inventions in the Skoda
Škoda
Škoda is a Czech surname and brand name. It may refer to:* Škoda Auto, automobile manufacturer in the Czech Republic...
cannon factory in Pilzen brought him world recognition. Milanković would devour his stories about an engineer’s profession and life. In the Realka high school in Osijek, the teacher of mathematics wasthe young, 28 years old Serbian, Doctor of Philosophy, mathematician Vladimir Varićak who noticed Milutin’s special inclination to mathematics. He had a great influence in Milutin’s choice of scientific vocation. Milankovitch graduated in 1896 as the best pupil of the Realka High School in Osijek and participated, as a representative of Serbian high school graduated students from the Austrian monarchy, at the meeting of all graduate students in the Kingdom of Serbia
Kingdom of Serbia
The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...
.
The Milanković family wanted to direct Milutin to some high agricultural school because it was necessary to secure someone to manage their spacious land. Milutin himself wanted to study electrical engineering, but since there was no such school in Vienna, he opted for studying civil engineering. Milutin’s cousin Veselin who had left for Vienna the year before to study engineering, greatly influenced Milutin’s life decision to continue his education in Vienna. Milutin left for Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
with Veselin on the 5th of October 1896.
The professor of the science of building bridges, Johann Brick, the top expert of Viennese Mechanics of that time, taught the most important subject of the fifth school year. In Brick’s teaching, young Milanković found strong inspiration for later scientific work. Milanković successfully graduated in civil engineering in 1902. After completing one year of military service in the Hapsburg monarchy, Milanković returned to Vienna in 1903 with the intention of continuing doctoral studies. Milanković earned his PhD in 1904, when he was 25, with the thesis entitled „Theory of Pressure Curves”, or in the original „Beitrag zur Theorie der Druck-kurven”. After officially receiving his PhD diploma, Milanković decided to commence working in some major construction company.
Construction company
At the beginning of 1905, Milanković was employed as an engineer in the construction company of Adolf Baron Pittel Betonbau-Unternehmung in Vienna. In the first year since he got a steady job, Milanković encountered the problem of designing a large warehouse of reinforced concrete. Baron Pittel, owner of companies renowned for concrete construction in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, often entrusted complex construction to this young civil engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
and doctor of technical sciences. Similarly, Milanković was assigned to design a factory, not an easy job. The project was more complex than it would be today because in that time there was no mathematical formula by which to determine the precise dimensions of the reinforcement beams and bearing plates.
Milanković, convinced of the validity of the general theory of elasticity, which he had founded in his doctoral dissertation, worked long and hard on this calculation; it was later published in the scientific magazine entitled "Contribution to the theory of reinforced-concrete beams." Solutions which he is offered in these works attracted the attention of construction engineers, especially designers, and very quickly were incorporated into books and construction manuals. Milanković was the first expert to undertake construction mathematical modeling, leaving geometric (graphic) design methods that were very popular in that time. The result was particularly evident in the extraordinary design of a reinforced-concrete aqueduct for a hydroelectric power plant in Sebeș
Sebes
Sebeș is a city in Alba County, central Romania, southern Transylvania.-Geography:The city lies on the Mureș River valley and it straddles the Sebeș river...
, in Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, which was Milanković drew at the beginning of his career.
In just five years at Vienna construction companies, Milanković gained a great reputation among engineers, because of the number of objects he designed. In addition to the aqueduct in Sebeș (which resembled the ancient bridges), he designed the aqueducts in Semmering
Semmering
For the town of the same name, see Semmering, Austria.Semmering is a mountain pass in the Eastern Northern Limestone Alps connecting Lower Austria and Styria, between which it forms a natural border.-Location:...
and Piten (now Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
), bridges in Kranj
Kranj
' is the third largest municipality and fourth largest city in Slovenia, with a population of 54,500 . It is located approximately 20 km north-west of Ljubljana...
(Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
), Banhildi (Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
), Isla
Isla
-Business:* ISLA, the International Securities Lending Association, a trade association-People:* Isla * Víctor Isla, Peruvian politician and a Congressman representing Loreto for the 2006-2011 term-Geography:* Mt...
(Austria), and a new Krup
Krupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
metal factory of in Berdorf
Berdorf
Berdorf is a commune and small town in eastern Luxembourg. It is part of the canton of Echternach, which is part of the district of Grevenmacher. Berdorf is known for the sandstone rocks surrounding it....
. As a representative of the mentioned company, he participated in the construction of a collector within the Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
sewage system on the banks of the Sava River
Sava River
The Sava is a river in Southeast Europe, a right side tributary of the Danube river at Belgrade. Counting from Zelenci, the source of Sava Dolinka, it is long and drains of surface area. It flows through Slovenia, Croatia, along the northern border of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and through Serbia....
.
In 1908 an Annexation crisis
Bosnian crisis
The Bosnian Crisis of 1908–1909, also known as the Annexation crisis, or the First Balkan Crisis, erupted into public view when on 6 October 1908, Austria-Hungary announced the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Britain, Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, Germany and France...
between Austria-Hungary and Serbia erupted. Citizens of Serbian nationality in Austria-Hungary, especially the intellectuals, suffered great pressure from the authoritarian government. Although engineering jobs were making good income for Milanković, he experienced a growing desire to engage in science while undertaking only freelance jobs in civil engineering.
The year 1909 was crucial for Milutin Milankovitć. Milanković was invited by the Philosophical Faculty of Belgrade University to move to Belgrade and become a Professor at the Department for Applied Mathematics
Applied mathematics
Applied mathematics is a branch of mathematics that concerns itself with mathematical methods that are typically used in science, engineering, business, and industry. Thus, "applied mathematics" is a mathematical science with specialized knowledge...
, within which were rational and celestial
Celestial mechanics
Celestial mechanics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the motions of celestial objects. The field applies principles of physics, historically classical mechanics, to astronomical objects such as stars and planets to produce ephemeris data. Orbital mechanics is a subfield which focuses on...
mechanics and theoretical physics
Theoretical physics
Theoretical physics is a branch of physics which employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena...
. He was elected associate professor. Leaving Vienna, Milutin Milanković maintained friendly ties with numerous Austrian scientists and institutions with which he exchanged scientific information and ideas. Whenever the circumstances permitted, he would take the opportunity to visit Vienna and other places in Austria, to meet friends and collaborators, to participate in the work of important scientific gatherings or to participate in major construction works as a consultant or designer.
Milanković continued design and constructors jobs when he moved to the Kingdom of Serbia
Kingdom of Serbia
The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...
and, with engineer Petar Putnik, school friend from the University of Vienna and the owner of a construction company, was retained to design the bridge on the railway line Niš
Niš
Niš is the largest city of southern Serbia and third-largest city in Serbia . According to the data from 2011, the city of Niš has a population of 177,972 inhabitants, while the city municipality has a population of 257,867. The city covers an area of about 597 km2, including the urban area,...
- Knjaževac
Knjaževac
Knjaževac is a town and municipality situated in the eastern part of Serbia bordering the Republic of Bulgaria and is part of Timočka Krajina region. It is found between the latitudes of 43°20' and 43°45' north and between the longitudes 22°11' and 22°41' east. The town is situated between three...
. His friend's idea was to build for that railway line, for the first time in Serbia, bridges of reinforced concrete, each spanning 30 feet between natural supports on the rocky shores. Milanković liked this idea very much and quickly performed a static calculation that would apply to all bridges, which later was the main reason for the Serbian government to entrust work to the company Petar Putnik in 1912.
Celestial mechanics and the mystery of the Ice Ages
Milanković’s scientific work entitled "Contribution to the mathematical theory of climate" on Earth was published in Belgrade on April 5, 1912. Studying the works of the best-known climatologist of that time, Hann, Milanković noticed a significant issue which became one of the major topics of his research. It was the issue of the ice ages. In 1912 war broke out between the Ottoman EmpireOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
and the Kingdom of Serbia. Milanković’s book entitled "The schedule sun radiation on the earth's surface" was published in Belgrade on June 5, 1913.
Next year, in 1914, was published Milanković’s scientific work entitled "About the issue of the astronomical theory of ice ages". In that same year, Milanković traveled to Dalj
Dalj
Dalj is a village on the Danube in eastern Croatia, near the confluence of the Drava and Danube, on the border with Serbia. It is connected with the D519 highway and administratively located in the municipality of Erdut, Osijek-Baranja County.-References:...
, in Austria-Hungary, to marry Christine Topuzović in her native village. At the time of the July crisis with Serbia, the Austro-Hungarian authoritarian power continued pressure on the Serbs. That crisis was to lead to the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. However, after the wedding, Austria-Hungary authorities arrested him as a citizen of Serbia and confined him to prison in Karlovac
Karlovac
Karlovac is a city and municipality in central Croatia. The city proper has a population of 49,082, while the municipality has a population of 59,395 inhabitants .Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County...
and later in Osijek
Osijek
Osijek is the fourth largest city in Croatia with a population of 83,496 in 2011. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja county...
. From this prison he was freed with the help of his wife Christine, uncle Vasa, and Emanuel Cuber, a professor at the University of Vienna, but freed on condition that he stay away from the border with Serbia. The political leader of Serbs in Austria-Hungary, Svetozar Pribićević
Svetozar Pribicevic
Svetozar Pribićević was an ethnic Serb politician from Croatia who worked hard for creation of unitaristic Yugoslavia. However, he later became a bitter opponent of the same policy and of the dictatorship of king Aleksandar Karađorđević...
, took an interest in his case and was able to arrange him exile to the north of Hungary. Once there, he was interned by the Austro-Hungarian
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
army in Neusiedl am See
Neusiedl am See
Neusiedl am See is a town in Burgenland, Austria, and administrative center of the district of Neusiedl am See.Neusiedl am See is located on the northern shore of the Neusiedler See.- History :...
and later in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, where he was obliged to appear every day at the police station.
Milutin Milanković spent four years in Budapest, almost the entire war.
Throughout his internment in Budapest he devoted his time to a field now known as the Milankovitch cycles
Milankovitch cycles
Milankovitch theory describes the collective effects of changes in the Earth's movements upon its climate, named after Serbian civil engineer and mathematician Milutin Milanković, who worked on it during First World War internment...
and, by the end of the war, he had finished a monograph which was published in 1920, in the publications of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most prominent academic institution in Serbia today...
, by Gauthier-Villars in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
under the title Théorie mathématique des phénomènes thermiques produits par la radiation solaire (Mathematical theory of thermal phenomena caused by solar radiation).
In Budapest he met the Library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
director of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest.-History:...
Koloman von Celia who, since he himself was a great lover of mathematics, arranged for Milanković to perform scientific research at the Central Meteorological Institute. During this two-year appointment for development of mathematical theories related to the prediction of climate change on Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
, he published a scientific work entitled "Researching of the climate planet Mars" in 1916. So while war raged in Europe, Milanković studied the climate on Mars, which aimed to reveal whether organic life on this planet would be possible. His calculation of the amount of insolation and mean annual temperature of the Mars surface and lower layers of the atmosphere was confirmed many decades later, when the first spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
to Mars landed. In fact Milankvoć already had laid the foundations in the modeling of climate on Earth and on other planets.
After World War I, Milanković with his family on 19 March 1919, returned to Belgrade. After returning to his homeland (now the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) Milanković continued his professorial career, becoming a full professor the University of Belgrade. In addition to scientific and professorial work Milanković continued to work as a civil engineer. Owners of construction companies engaged him, as very good engineers were paid well, about building a large tobacco factory in Niš
Niš
Niš is the largest city of southern Serbia and third-largest city in Serbia . According to the data from 2011, the city of Niš has a population of 177,972 inhabitants, while the city municipality has a population of 257,867. The city covers an area of about 597 km2, including the urban area,...
, then the large tobacco warehouses in Skopje
Skopje
Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...
, Veles
Veles
Veles may refer to:*Veles , Slavic deity*Veles , in the Republic of Macedonia*Veles municipality, in the Republic of Macedonia*Veles, singular of velites, a class of infantry in the early Roman Republic...
, Kavadarci
Kavadarci
Kavadarci is a town located in the Tikveš region of the Republic of Macedonia. Situated in the heart of Macedonia’s wine country, it is home to the largest winery in south-eastern Europe, named after the Tikveš plain. The town of Kavadarci is the seat of Kavadarci Municipality...
, and Čapljina
Capljina
Čapljina is a town and municipality of the same name in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located in the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Čapljina is located on the border with Croatia a mere from the Adriatic Sea....
, and facilities of the National Bank including the factory for the production of banknotes in Belgrade and its branch offices in Skopje and Bitola
Bitola
Bitola is a city in the southwestern part of the Republic of Macedonia. The city is an administrative, cultural, industrial, commercial, and educational centre. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba and Nidže mountains, 14 km north of the...
.
In parallel with the scientific research of the solar system, Milanković engaged in its popularization, so the in period from 1925 to 1928 he wrote the popular-science book "Through Space and Centuries - Letters of an Astronomer", written in the form of letters to an unknown girl. In this popular book, readers travel on water, at the time formation and cooling of the Earth (during the time of the mythological Titan
Titan (mythology)
In Greek mythology, the Titans were a race of powerful deities, descendants of Gaia and Uranus, that ruled during the legendary Golden Age....
), then through the ancient civilizations where he introduces them to the famous ancient and renaissance thinkers, then to his contemporaries, and then to the mathematical theory of climate with its cycle of ice ages. He takes his readers to the Moon, Mars, Venus and other planets of the solar system, where they meet with the complex problems of celestial mechanics. This popular book (for ordinary people) was published in 1928.[3]
The results set forth in his work won him a considerable reputation in the scientific world, notably for his "curve of insolation
Insolation
Insolation is a measure of solar radiation energy received on a given surface area in a given time. It is commonly expressed as average irradiance in watts per square meter or kilowatt-hours per square meter per day...
at the Earth's surface". This solar curve was not really accepted until 1924, when the great meteorologist and climatologist Wladimir Köppen
Wladimir Köppen
Wladimir Peter Köppen was a Russian geographer, meteorologist, climatologist and botanist. After studies in St. Petersburg, he spent the bulk of his life and professional career in Germany and Austria...
, with his son-in-law Alfred Wegener
Alfred Wegener
Alfred Lothar Wegener was a German scientist, geophysicist, and meteorologist.He is most notable for his theory of continental drift , proposed in 1912, which hypothesized that the continents were slowly drifting around the Earth...
, introduced the curve in their work entitled Climates of the geological past.
After these first tributes, Milanković was invited, in 1927, to co-operate in two important publications: the first was a handbook on climatology (Handbuch der Klimatologie) and the second a handbook on geophysics (Gutenberg
Beno Gutenberg
Beno Gutenberg was a German-American seismologist who made several important contributions to the science...
's Handbuch der Geophysik). The former, for which he wrote the introduction Mathematische Klimalehre und astronomische Theorie der Klimaschwankungen (Mathematical science of climate and astronomical theory of the variations of the climate), was published in 1930 in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and in 1939 was translated into Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
. It further developed the theory of planetary climates with special reference to the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
.
Milanković derived a mathematical formula that can calculate to what extent the ice cover will react to a particular change of solar insolation of the Earth. He managed to establish the mathematical relationship between the summer insolation and the altitude of the border line of snow cover and thus to know how the snow cover will increase as a result of any given change in summer insolation. These results were published in 1938 in a scientific article entitled "New results of the astronomical theory of climate change." In fact with these results modern geologists received a chart
Chart
A chart is a graphical representation of data, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart"...
from which they could discover the border altitude ice cover (glacial) at any time in the last 650,000 years.
For a second textbook, Milanković wrote four sections developing and formulating his theory of the secular motion of the Earth's poles
Geographical pole
A geographical pole is either of the two points—the north pole and the south pole—on the surface of a rotating planet where the axis of rotation meets the surface of the body...
, and his theory of glacial periods (Milankovitch cycles
Milankovitch cycles
Milankovitch theory describes the collective effects of changes in the Earth's movements upon its climate, named after Serbian civil engineer and mathematician Milutin Milanković, who worked on it during First World War internment...
), which was built on earlier work by James Croll
James Croll
James Croll was a 19th century Scottish scientist who developed a theory of climate change based on changes in the Earth's orbit.-Life:...
. Milanković was able to improve upon Croll's work partly by the use of improved calculations of the Earth's orbit then recently published by Ludwig Pilgrim, a pioneer in colorimetry, in 1904. Fully aware that his theory of solar radiation had been successfully completed, but that the papers dealing with this theory were dispersed in separate publications, he decided to collect and publish them under a single cover.
Life's work
To collect his scientific work on the theory of solar radiation that was scattered in many books and magazines, Milanković began work in 1939 on his life's work entitled "Canon of Insolation of the Earth and Its Application to the Problem of the Ice Ages", which covered his nearly three decades of research (a large number of formulas, calculations and schemes), but also summarized universal laws on which it was possible to explain why climate change and 11 ice ages (Milankovitch cyclesMilankovitch cycles
Milankovitch theory describes the collective effects of changes in the Earth's movements upon its climate, named after Serbian civil engineer and mathematician Milutin Milanković, who worked on it during First World War internment...
) came about.
In arranging and writing the "Canon," Milanković spent two years. The manuscript was submitted to print on April 2, 1941 - four days before the attack of Nazi Germany and its allies to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
. On April 6, 1941 beginning with bombing Belgrade
Bombing of Belgrade in World War II
The city of Belgrade was bombed during two campaigns in World War II, the first undertaken by the Luftwaffe in 1941, and the latter by Allied air forces in 1944.- German bombing :...
. During the bombing the printing factory and all the books were destroyed, except one book that Milanković had taken for himself on the first day of printing. After the successful occupation of Serbia, in May 1941, in front of the Milanković house in Belgrade parked a car from which emerged two German officers. These were geology students of Milanković′s friend Wolfgang Selera. Thereupon he decided that the only remaining book be sent to a friend in Freiburg
Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...
.
Even before the war, Milanković had become interested in the path of a projectile
Projectile
A projectile is any object projected into space by the exertion of a force. Although a thrown baseball is technically a projectile too, the term more commonly refers to a weapon....
in or near orbit
Orbit
In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...
, so he had performed mathematical calculations relating latitude
Latitude
In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...
and orbit. So far there is not known to have been any Milankovic scientific paper used in the V-2
V-2 rocket
The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...
project, which is the father of every modern space program.
"Kanon" was issued in the edition of the Royal Serbian Academy
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most prominent academic institution in Serbia today...
, 626 pages in quarto, and was printed in German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
as Kanon der Erdbestrahlung und seine Anwendung auf das Eiszeitenproblem, as soon as possible after it came to the attention of European and international public experts.
During the German occupation of Serbia (1941–1944), Milanković withdrew from public life and decided to write a history of his life going beyond scientific matters. His autobiography would be published after the war, entitled "Memories, experiences and knowledge - from 1909 to 1944" in Belgrade in 1952. Milutin Milanković died in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
in 1958.
Contesting the "Canon"
After the death of Milutina Milanković, most of the scientific community came to dispute his "Canon" and no longer recognized the results of his research. But ten years after his death and even fifty years from the publication of "life's work," his theory was again taken under consideration. His "Canon" was translated into English under the title Canon of Insolation of the Ice-Age Problem, in 1969 by the IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
Program for Scientific Translations and was published by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
, Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
.
Rebirth of the "Canon"
In the beginning recognition came slowly, but later all the facts pointed to the accuracy of its theory. Project CLIMAP (Climate: Long Range Investigetion, Mapping and Production) finally resolved and proved Milankovitch cycles.In 1972, based on deep-sea cores, scientists compiled time scale climatic events of the past 700,000 years. They performed the analysis of the cores and four years later (1976) came to the conclusion that in the past 500,000 years climate has changed depending on the inclination
Inclination
Inclination in general is the angle between a reference plane and another plane or axis of direction.-Orbits:The inclination is one of the six orbital parameters describing the shape and orientation of a celestial orbit...
of Earth's axis
Axial tilt
In astronomy, axial tilt is the angle between an object's rotational axis, and a line perpendicular to its orbital plane...
of rotation
Rotation
A rotation is a circular movement of an object around a center of rotation. A three-dimensional object rotates always around an imaginary line called a rotation axis. If the axis is within the body, and passes through its center of mass the body is said to rotate upon itself, or spin. A rotation...
and precession
Precession
Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotation axis of a rotating body. It can be defined as a change in direction of the rotation axis in which the second Euler angle is constant...
(under that the term is understood a phenomenon which occurs because the Earth on its way around the Sun behaves like a tern (also known as a top or a gyroscope) which is slowly spinning and whose axis through the time (known as a *Great year
Great year
The Great Year is an archaic cosmological conception, found in different cultures, which acquired new interpretations with the development of astronomical knowledge In the Western tradition Plato has been the main source for the idea, so it was also frequently called 'Platonic year'...
) describes the surface cone
Cone (geometry)
A cone is an n-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a base to a point called the apex or vertex. Formally, it is the solid figure formed by the locus of all straight line segments that join the apex to the base...
),), as concluded Miutin Milanković by in 1924 by means of complex calculations (only with pencil, paper and ingenious knowledge of mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
). At NASA, in the edition of "On the Shoulders of Giants", Milanković has been ranked among the top ten minds of all time in the sciences of the Earth! That's why his picture is located in the Museum in Washington next to Newton
Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...
, Kepler, Galileo, and Copernicus.
Super calendar
Milanković's calendarRevised Julian calendar
The Revised Julian calendar, also known as the Rectified Julian calendar, or, less formally, New calendar, is a calendar, originated in 1923, which effectively discontinued the 340 years of divergence between the naming of dates sanctioned by those Eastern Orthodox churches adopting it and the...
is so far the most accurate calendar. The Gregorian calendar
Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar, also known as the Western calendar, or Christian calendar, is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree signed on 24 February 1582, a papal bull known by its opening words Inter...
has two big drawbacks: for the year were taken 365 and 1/4 days, and 235 lunar months is exactly 19 solar years. A leap year is one whose number is divisible by 4 without remainder, with certain exceptions. Going back to the Julian calendar, Milanković annulled 13 days which had arisen because every fourth year had been a leap year and that had put the calendar ahead of Earth’s orbital period, called a tropical year
Tropical year
A tropical year , for general purposes, is the length of time that the Sun takes to return to the same position in the cycle of seasons, as seen from Earth; for example, the time from vernal equinox to vernal equinox, or from summer solstice to summer solstice...
. Thus the Milanković calendar was put on the same date as the Gregorian.
The Gregorian calendar
Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar, also known as the Western calendar, or Christian calendar, is the internationally accepted civil calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII, after whom the calendar was named, by a decree signed on 24 February 1582, a papal bull known by its opening words Inter...
avoids some but not all of the unneeded leap years by letting a century year be a leap year only if both the number of years and the number of centuries are divisible by 4 without remainder. Under Milanković's calendar
Revised Julian calendar
The Revised Julian calendar, also known as the Rectified Julian calendar, or, less formally, New calendar, is a calendar, originated in 1923, which effectively discontinued the 340 years of divergence between the naming of dates sanctioned by those Eastern Orthodox churches adopting it and the...
, a century year will be leap only if the number of centuries when divided by 9 gives a remainder of 2 or 6. All other century years are simple, which provides total precision up to 2,800 years, and until then there can be no disagreement with the current Gregorian calendar. Beyond then, due to its more precise century years rule, Milankovic's calendar should be corrected only after 28,800 years. Although it was accepted at the Pan-Orthodox Congress May 30, 1923rd in Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
, it was never implemented in practice. This is probably because Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
policies prevented some of the Orthodox churches from participating, preventing consensus. The Milanković calendar is in fact the most accurate calendar in the world today.
Other work
In addition to his scientific work, Milanković always showed great interest in the historical development of science. He wrote a textbook on the history of astronomy, and two books on a popular level: Through Space and Centuries fictionalized the development of astronomy while the other, entitled Through the Realm of Science, dealt with the development of exact sciences.Milanković also published a three volume autobiography in Serbian, Recollection, Experiences and Vision, which was never translated. For this reason his son, Vasko Milanković, has completed a biography: My father, Milutin Milanković.
Milanković was elected a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most prominent academic institution in Serbia today...
in 1920, a full member in 1924, a corresponding member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1925, and a member of the German Academy of Naturalists "Leopoldina" in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...
; he was also a member of many scientific societies and related organizations, both in Yugoslavia and abroad.
Trivia
Towards the end of life Milanković deal some trivial things, such as the mathematical calculation of the earth's tallest building made of concrete. The inspiration he received from the Old TestamentOld Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
, and his work was titled "The Babylonian tower modern techniques" (1955). At the end of the work Milanković concludes about "Babylonian tower of concrete to the sky": that base includes surface of our Earth is 1.4 km. So that really elevation above ground level is 20.25 kilometers. That height we can not exceed. A Construction static stops us on this intractable border.
Namings
- MilankovicMilankovic (lunar crater)Milankovic is a lunar crater that is located in the high northern latitudes on the far side of the Moon. Overlapping the southeastern rim is the smaller but more sharply defined crater Ricco. Just to the south is Karpinskiy, and to the north is the prominent Plaskett.This is a worn and eroded...
— a craterImpact craterIn the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...
on the far side of the MoonMoonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more... - Milankovic — a 118 km craterImpact craterIn the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...
on MarsMarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
at 54.4N, 213.3E - 1605 Milankovitch1605 Milankovitch1605 Milankovitch is a main-belt asteroid discovered on April 13, 1936 by P. Djurkovic at Uccle.- External links :*...
— a minor planetMinor planetAn asteroid group or minor-planet group is a population of minor planets that have a share broadly similar orbits. Members are generally unrelated to each other, unlike in an asteroid family, which often results from the break-up of a single asteroid...
.
In Serbian
- Milankovitch, M (1909) Osobina kretanja u jednom specijaliziranom problemu triju tela, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1911) O kinematičkoj simetriji i njenoj primeni na kvalitativna rešenja problema dinamike, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1911) O opštim integralima problema n tela, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1912) O teoriji Mišelsonova eksperimenta, Zagreb
- Milankovitch, M (1912) Prilog teoriji matematske klime, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1913) O rasporedu sunčeve radijacije na površini zemlje, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1914) O pitanju astronomskih teorija ledenih doba, Zagreb
- Milankovitch, M (1916) Ispitivanje o klimi planeta Marsa, Zagreb
- Milankovitch, M (1923) Reforma Julijanskog kalendara, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1923) Kalorična godišnja doba i njihova primena u paleoklimatskom problemu, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1926) Ispitivanja o termičkoj konstituciji planetskih atmosfera, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1928) Kroz vasionu i vekove : pisma jednog astronoma, Novi Sad
- Milankovitch, M (1929) O oscilacijama temperature u raznim slojevima Zemljine atmosfere, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1935) Nebeska mehanika, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1939) O upotrebi vektorskih elemenata u računu planetskih poremećaja, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1941) Kanon der Erdebestrahlung und seine anwendung auf das eiszeitenproblem, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1944) Kroz vasionu i vekove : jedna astronomija za svakoga, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1946) Isak Njutn i Njutnova Principija, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1946) Mika Alas : beleške o životu velikog matematičara Mihaila Petrovića : ilustrovano sa 4 fotografije, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1947) Osnovi nebeske mehanike, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1947) Osnivači prirodnih nauka : Pitagora, Demokritos, Aristoteles, Arhimedes, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1948) Istorija astronomske nauke od njenih prvih početaka do 1727, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1948) Astronomska teorija klimatskih promena i njena primena u geofizici, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1950) Kroz carstvo nauka : slike iz života velikih naučnika, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1952) Uspomene, doživljaji i saznanja iz godina 1909 do 1944., Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1953 Dvadeset dva veka hemije, Kragujevac
- Milankovitch, M (1953) O Ptolemajevu izračunavanju broja Pi. Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1955) Nauka i tehnika tokom vekova, Sarajevo
- Milankovitch, M (1955) Tehnika u toku davnih vekova, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1955) Vavilonski toranj moderne tehnike, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1957) Uspomene, doživljaji i saznanja posle 1944 godine, Belgrade
In German
- Milankovitch, M (1905) Beitrag zur Theorie der Betoneisenträger, Vienna
- Milankovitch, M (1907) Die vorteilhafteste Konstruktionshőhe und Verlagsweite der Rippen der Hennebiqueschen Decke, Vienna
- Milankovitch, M (1932) Bahnkurve der sakularen polverlagerung, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1933) Das Problem der Verlagerungen der Drehpole der Erde in den exakten und in den beschreibenden Naturwissenschaften, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1954) Uber den anteil der exakten wissenschaften an der erforschung der geologischenvorzeit, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1956) Aristarchos und Apollonios - das heliozentrische und das geozentrische Weltsystem des klassischen Altertums, Belgrade
- Milankovitch, M (1957) Astronomische Theorie der Klimaschwankungen :ihr Werdegang und Widerhall, Belgrade
See also
- Milankovitch cyclesMilankovitch cyclesMilankovitch theory describes the collective effects of changes in the Earth's movements upon its climate, named after Serbian civil engineer and mathematician Milutin Milanković, who worked on it during First World War internment...
- History of climate change scienceHistory of climate change scienceThe history of the scientific discovery of climate change began in the early 19th century when natural changes in paleoclimate were first suspected and the natural greenhouse effect first identified. In the late 19th century, scientists first argued that human emissions of greenhouse gases could...
- Index of Serbs of Croatia-related articles
External links
- Life and Scientific Work of Milutin Milanković
- Solar Radiation and Milanković
- Milankovitch Cycles and the Shift of the Tropic of Cancer
- Precession and the Milanković Theory
- Document containing facsimile of first page of Milanković's work, p. 3, Serbian Academy of Science and Arts.
- NASA Earth Observatory article in the "on the shoulders of giants" series