Works in science history

Milankovic had already in 1909 started working on the history of science and published fifteen works in this field.

''When working on my doctoral dissertation, I had taken the first step in my scientific career, I realized that each individual science can be understood and fully comprehended only when its origins and gradual development to modern times is known. Textbooks, of the kind used in schools, usually do not have much to say about its origin and development. The subject of my dissertation was one of the problems of Mechanics. This is why I found the classic work of Ernst Mach on the development of this science. After I had studied it, I felt that I was standing on firm ground, and my spiritual insight had cleared and broadened.''

''Little attention is paid in the history taught in school to the gradual development and progress of science, art and technology, in short, the material and spiritual development of certain nations and entire mankind. And Guttenberg’s invention of the printing press contributed more to that development than any Heinrich, Conrad, Otto, Edward or Louis and any of their battles…''

His work Through Space and Centuries began as a series of letters in German, which were then translated by Milankovic into Serbian. They were published in the Annals of Matica srpska, and were collected and published as a single book in 1928. There were two editions in Serbian and two in German during Milankovic’s lifetime, with seven thousand copies sold in Serbian and ten thousand in German.

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