MILUTIN MILANKOVIĆ AND HIS FRENCH READINGS

Abstract

The works of Milutin Milanković, mathematician, astronomer and climatologist, which, for the uninitiated, carry enigmatic titles and speak of thermal phenomena and solar radiation, would have had little chance to attract the attention of literary critics, if among them one had not found some popular science works intended for the general public. One of them, titled Kroz vasionu i vekove (Across the Universe and Centuries) from 1928, a popular epistolary novel, reveals the author’s French readings fairly quickly. The influence of the 17th century French author Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle and his book Interviews on the Plurality of Worlds from 1686 seems obvious, however neither scientists nor literary historians say much about it. The subject of this paper is comparative analysis of these two books, which use similar writing strategies, exploring border areas between 17th and 20th century science and fiction. Our objectives are to place the mentioned works in the scientific and cultural context of the respective periods. Furthermore we want to take a new look at literary texts with a strong scientific content and analyze the phenomenon of popularization of science, as well as highlight often unknown relationships between literature and science.