In a world torn by war, a prisoner sat in silence—not defeated, but listening. Listening to the deep rhythms of the cosmos, the whisper of orbits, the tilt of the Earth. That prisoner was Milutin Milanković, and from his captivity, he gave humanity one of the most profound insights into our planet’s climate and its place in the universe.
This is the first in a series: The Quest for Stillness—contributions on great minds who created and acted out of a place of stillness.
Explore ways how to create and act from stillness:
🧭 The Sacred Science of Milutin Milanković
During geophysics lectures at TUM (Technical University of Munich), I first heard about Milutin Milanković—and how he discovered the deep-time cycles of Earth’s movement, including the theory of ice ages, while imprisoned.
This deeply resonated with me: How could someone reach such understanding locked inside, with no observations, no measurements, no laboratories? In recent years, I’ve come to realize this was not just brilliance—it was connection to Source: the still point of all information in the universe.
🔒 A Prisoner of War, A Servant of the Cosmos
In 1914, Milanković was arrested during his honeymoon as a “hostile foreigner” in the Austro-Hungarian Empire for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His sentence was indefinite internment, and he spent time in prisons before being placed under house arrest in Budapest.
He described his first day in prison like this:
"Sat on the bed, I looked around and started synchronizing with my new social position: that lonely room, away from the noise of people, felt made for scientific work […] In the suitcase I had my printed works and my notes on the cosmic problem, there was clean paper too and I started writing. It was far past midnight when I stopped. I looked around the room, wondering where I was. It felt like I was in a roadhouse on my trip through the Universe."
— Milanković, M. Special publication by Serbian Academy of Sciences Vol. 195 (ed. Djaja, I.) (Naucna Knjiga, 1952)
From this silence, he began building what would become a revolution in understanding Earth’s climate.
🧘♂️ Creation from Stillness: Science as Spiritual Listening
Milanković saw the universe not as chaos but as a “unique, boundless, eternal mother of life."
“In the boundless universe, which has no beginning or end in space and time, the same natural laws rule as on Earth.”
— Collected Works, Philosophical Writings (Institute for the History of Science, Belgrade)
Milanković believed in a deterministic, eternal cosmos—not born, not ending, but always governed by natural law. For him, the universe was not created, and asking when it began was “meaningless.”
And yet, he approached it with awe. A materialistic monist and determinist, he nonetheless worked as if in communion with something mystical. By withdrawing into silence, he heard the deep rhythms of the cosmos.
From this enforced solitude, he began crafting his model of Earth's orbital variations—eventually revealing the 650,000-year rhythm of ice ages. His prison cell became a cosmic observatory. Without telescopes or data, he listened—to the math, to the cosmos, to something that moved through both.
He believed that true discovery comes from stillness, and that the quieted mind can hear the music of the stars. His work was not merely intellectual—it was meditative.
🔁 The Four Movements of Earth
Milanković identified four great Earth movements that shape the dance of climate:
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Eccentricity – The elliptical stretching of Earth’s orbit (~100,000 years)
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Obliquity – The shifting tilt of Earth's axis (~41,000 years)
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Axial Precession – The slow wobble of Earth's spin (~23,000 years)
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Apsidal Precession – The rotation of the entire orbit itself (~112,000 years)
Together, these cycles form a celestial metronome—the heartbeat of Earth’s climate. Milanković showed how subtle shifts in Earth's position and orientation toward the Sun could dramatically alter the distribution and intensity of sunlight across the planet, triggering the advance and retreat of ice ages. This was published in 1941 in his life’s great scientific work: Canon of Insolation and the Ice-Age Problem.
Though initially overlooked, his predictions were confirmed decades later by marine sediment cores in the 1970s
([Hays, Imbrie & Shackleton, 1976, Science]).
His work laid the foundation for understanding natural, long-term drivers of climate change, offering crucial context for today's anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming. His insight was not only scientific, but philosophical: we are shaped not only by what happens on Earth, but by how Earth moves through space.
🤝 Friendships That Shaped the Earth
Milanković formed a deep friendship with Alfred Wegener, the visionary father of continental drift theory. They corresponded, supported each other’s work, and shared a reverence for the unseen forces that shape Earth. Wegener moved continents; Milanković moved time.
Wegener’s influence deepened when, in 1932, he encouraged Milanković to explore polar wander—how shifting landmasses could nudge the Earth’s axis and affect climate. Milanković came to view Earth as a fluid body, behaving solidly in brief shocks but elastically under long-term forces.
Through Wegener, Milanković was also intellectually connected to Wladimir Köppen, Wegener’s father-in-law and a pioneering climatologist who co-developed the Köppen climate classification. Köppen encouraged the development of long-term climate theories—laying fertile ground for Milanković’s orbital models.
Milanković also deeply admired Nikola Tesla. On behalf of five academics, he personally wrote the recommendation that Tesla be admitted as a full member of the Royal Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts—accepted in 1937.
These friendships were more than professional. They were bonds of vision and reverence—among scientists listening for Earth’s deeper story, each one tuned to the rhythms of time, motion, and cosmic connection.
🌌 A Scientist of Space and Spirit
Milanković’s curiosity transcended Earth. He calculated surface temperatures on Mars, Venus, and the Moon—pioneering planetary climate science.
He studied ancient calendars, solar eclipses, and timekeeping systems across civilizations. For him, science was a sacred language—revealing the architecture of the universe. Every wobble, tilt, and orbit was a verse in a cosmic poem.
In Through Distant Worlds and Times, he imagines walking through the ancient world in period dress, unseen among Babylonian priests, Aristotle, Eratosthenes—witnessing the unfolding of human understanding. It was science written as a time-traveling love letter.
✨ Legacy: The Quiet Revolution of Cosmic Climate
Today, Milankovitch cycles are foundational in climate science. His name is etched into lunar craters, asteroid belts, and the ice of Greenland.
But perhaps his greatest legacy is this:
He created from stillness. He listened until the stars spoke. He wrote not just equations—but the breath of the cosmos.
In a prison cell, with no tools but silence and thought, Milutin Milanković reminded us that truth doesn’t always require instruments.
Only a mind attuned to stillness.
Explore ways how to create and act from stillness: