Milutin Milanković

Milutin Milanković
File:MilutinMilankovic.PNG Portrtait by Paja Jovanović, 1943
Born	(1879-05-28)May 28, 1879 Dalj, then Austria-Hungary, now Croatia
Died	December 12, 1958(1958-12-12) (aged 79) Belgrade, Yugoslavia
Nationality	Serbian
Fields	geophysics, civil engineering
Known for	Milankovitch cycles

Milutin Milanković (Serbian: Милутин Миланковић, pronounced [milǔtin milǎːnkɔʋitɕ]; 28 May 1879 – 12 December 1958) was a Serbian geophysicist and civil engineer, best known for his theory of ice ages, suggesting a relationship between Earth's long-term climate changes 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.

Early years

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Milanković as a student in Vienna.

Born to Serbian, Orthodox parents in the village of Dalj, Austria-Hungary, today Croatia. 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, Vasilije 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 Andrija 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.

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 Vienna, 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.

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.

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Milanković with a pipe at the desk, and his signature.

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 Empire 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.

Life's work

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Monument of Milutin Milankovic in Novi Sad, Serbia.

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 cycles) 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.

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 Israel Program for Scientific Translations and was published by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C..

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 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 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.

Super calendar

Milanković's calendar 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.

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 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.

Namings

• Milankovic — a crater on the far side of the Moon
• Milankovic — a 118 km crater on Mars at 54.4N, 213.3E
• 1605 Milankovitch — a minor planet.

Bibliography

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 cycles
• History of climate change science

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

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bs:Milutin Milanković