摘要
Note： Items in Episodes＇ Classic Paper series normally analyze a single paper of major importance in the history of geosciences. The present contribution examines the book in which Milankovich summed up his life work. One of the few Serbian scientists of worldwide renown, Milutin Milankovich, was professor of applied mathematics at Belgrade University. He was born in 1879 in Dalj, near Osjek （today in Croatia）. He studied construction engineering in Vienna, graduated in 1902 and gained his PhD in 1904. After a brief but successful engineering practice in Vienna, he moved to Belgrade University. During his thirty years of work there he produced： a mathematical theory of the Earth＇s climate （1920）; his astronomic theory of climatic changes （1930, 1938, 1938a）; and his theory of the secular wandering of the Earth＇s poles （1933）. He retired in 1955 and died in Belgrade in 1958.
