Remembering James Croll

Visiting the Royal Scottish Geographic Society, in Perth, with my Probus club.

James Croll was a self-educated Perthshire scientist. He advanced the first theory of how variations in the Earth's orbit could cause cyclical ice ages. He taught himself physics and astronomy while working as a janitor at the museum of Andersonian University in Glasgow. Eventually he was elected an FRS, before dying in Perth in 1890.

According to Wikipedia, his theory was not correct in its predictions, but the general idea was developed as the Milankovich cycles and is now accepted.