Editing Milutin Milanković (section)

===Later life===
To collect his scientific work on the theory of solar radiation that was scattered in many books and papers, Milanković began his life's work in 1939.<ref name="Dimitrijević" /><ref name="Milutin Milanković and Associates i"/> This tome was 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, including a large number of formulas, calculations and schemes, but also summarized universal laws through which it was possible to explain cyclical climate change – his namesake [[Milankovitch cycles]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/national-geographic-channel/all-videos/av-6256-6460/ngc-ice-age-cycles.html |title=Video – Ice Age Cycles|work=National Geographic |access-date=15 August 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111002172638/http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/national-geographic-channel/all-videos/av-6256-6460/ngc-ice-age-cycles.html |archive-date=2 October 2011 }}</ref>

Milanković spent two years arranging and writing the "Canon". The manuscript was submitted to print on 2 April 1941 – four days before the [[Invasion of Yugoslavia|attack of Nazi Germany and its allies on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia]]. In the [[Operation Retribution (1941)|bombing of Belgrade]] on 6 April 1941, the printing house where his work was being printed was destroyed; however, almost all of the printed sheet paper remained undamaged in the printing warehouse. After the successful occupation of Serbia on 15 May 1941, two German officers and geology students came to Milanković in his house and brought greetings from Professor {{ill|Wolfgang Soergel (paleontologist)|de|Wolfgang Soergel (Paläontologe)|lt=Wolfgang Soergel}} of [[Freiburg]]. Milanković gave them the only complete printed copy of the "Canon" to send to Soergel, to make certain that his work would be preserved. Milanković did not take part in the work of the university during the occupation, and after the war he was reinstated as professor.

The "Canon" was issued in 1941<ref name="M. Milankovitch 1941 622">{{Cite book| last=M. Milankovitch| title =Kanon der Erdbestrahlung| url =http://elibrary.matf.bg.ac.rs/bitstream/handle/123456789/702/MilutinMilankovicKanonDerErdbestrahlung.pdf?sequence=1|year=1941| publisher =Belgrade: Königlich Serbishe Akademie|isbn=|pages=622}}</ref> by the [[Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts|Royal Serbian Academy]], 626 pages in quarto, and was printed in [[German language|German]] as "Kanon der Erdbestrahlung und seine Anwendung auf das Eiszeitenproblem".<ref name="M. Milankovitch 1941 622"/> The titles of the six parts of the book are:
# "The planets' motion around the Sun and their mutual perturbations"
# "The rotation of the Earth"
# "Secular wanderings of the rotational poles of the Earth"
# "The Earth's insolation and its secular changes"
# "The connection between insolation and the temperature of the Earth and its atmosphere. The mathematical climate of the Earth"
# "The ice age, its mechanism, structure and chronology".
During the German occupation of Serbia from 1941 to 1944, Milanković withdrew from public life and decided to write a "history of his life and work" going beyond scientific matters, including his personal life and the love of his father who died in his youth. His autobiography would be published after the war, entitled "Recollection, Experiences and Vision" in Belgrade in 1952.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://scc.digital.nb.rs/document/II-016015-195 |title=Успомене, доживљаји и сазнања из година 1909 до 1944. – II-016015-195 – Дигитална Народна библиотека Србије |publisher=Scc.digital.nb.rs |access-date=15 August 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120331151811/http://scc.digital.nb.rs/document/II-016015-195 |archive-date=31 March 2012 |url-status=dead  }}</ref>

====Tower of Babel====
After the war, in 1947, Milanković's only son emigrated from the new communist [[SFR Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]] via [[Paris]], [[London]] and [[Egypt]] to [[Australia]]. Milanković would never see his son again and the only way of correspondence between them would be through letters. Milanković was vice president of the [[Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts|Serbian Academy of Sciences]] (1948–1958). In 1948, the General Assembly of the [[International Astronomical Union]] was held in [[Zürich]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wilson |first1=Ralph E.|title=Meeting of the International Astronomical Union|url=https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1948PASP...60..281W|journal=Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific|date=1948 |volume=60| issue =  356|page=281 |doi=10.1086/126072 |bibcode=1948PASP...60..281W }}</ref> Milankovich is listed as a member of Commission 7 for Celestial Mechanics, and “V. Mishkovitch” as member of Commission 19 for Latitude Variation and Commission 20 for Minor Planets.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=B. Arbutina |title=The First Yugoslav National Committee for Astronomy|url=https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2021POBeo.100..185A/abstract|journal=Public. Astron. Obs. Belgrade|date=2021 |volume=100|pages=185–191|bibcode=2021POBeo.100..185A}}</ref> For a short period, he was the head of the Belgrade Observatory (1948 - 1951). At that time, the [[Cold War]] between [[Nuclear weapons|nuclear powers]] began. In 1953, he was at the Congress of the [[International Union for Quaternary Research]] (INQUA) held in [[Rome]] where he was interrupted during his speech by numerous opponents since [[radiocarbon dating]] at that time showed different results than his theory.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Romano |first1=Marco |last2=Rubidge |first2=Bruce|title=A century since the recognition of cyclic climatic change by Milanković|url=https://www.academia.edu/44696247|journal=Sociatà Geologica Italiana|date=2021 |volume=53 |pages=9–13}}</ref><ref name="Fleming"/> In the same year, he became a member of the Italian Institute of [[Paleontology]]. In November 1954, fifty years after receiving his original diploma, he received the Golden Doctor's diploma from the Technical University of Vienna. In 1955, he was also elected as a corresponding member to the [[German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina|Academy of Naturalists "Leopoldina"]] in [[Halle, Saxony-Anhalt|Halle]], [[Saxony-Anhalt]], [[East Germany]].

At the same time, Milankovitch began publishing numerous books and [[textbooks]] on the history of science, including ''Isaac Newton and Newton's Principia'' (1946), ''The founders of the natural science Pythagoras – Democritus – Aristotle – Archimedes'' (1947), ''History of astronomy – from its beginnings up to 1727'' (1948), ''Through empire of science – images from the lives of great scientists'' (1950), ''Twenty-two centuries of Chemistry'' (1953), and ''Technology in Ancient times'' (1955).

In 1955, Milankovitch retired from the position of professor of [[celestial mechanics]] and the [[history of astronomy]] at the University of Belgrade. In the same year, he published his last work, which is not from the natural sciences, but from his original profession of structural engineering. The paper was titled ''The Tower of Babel of modern technology''. Milankovitch in this work calculated the highest building possible on our Earth. He was inspired by work of [[Pieter Bruegel the Elder]]'s [[The Tower of Babel (Bruegel)|Tower of Babel]] (older version in Vienna). The building would have a base radius of 112.84&nbsp;km and a height of 21646 m. Since the building penetrates the Earth 1.4&nbsp;km, it would have a height of 20.25&nbsp;km above the Earth's surface. At the very top, there would be a wide platform for a meteorological and astronomical station.

In September 1957, Milutin suffered a [[stroke]] and died in [[Belgrade]] in 1958.<ref name="Macdougall" /> He is buried in his family cemetery in [[Dalj]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2012}}