Pythagorean astronomical system

An astronomical system positing that the Earth, Moon, Sun and planets revolve around an unseen "Central Fire" was developed in the 5th century BC and has been attributed to the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus, a version based on Stobaeus account, who betrays a tendency to confound the dogmas of the early Ionian philosophers, and he occasionally mixes up Platonism with Pythagoreanism. Brewer (1894, page 2293) mentioned Pythagoras taught that the sun is a movable sphere in the centre of the universe, and that all the planets revolve round it.

The system has been called "the first coherent system in which celestial bodies move in circles", anticipating Copernicus in moving "the earth from the center of the cosmos [and] making it a planet". Although its concepts of a Central Fire distinct from the Sun, and a nonexistent "Counter-Earth" were erroneous, the system contained the insight that "the apparent motion of the heavenly bodies" was (in large part) due to "the real motion of the observer". How much of the system was intended to explain observed phenomena and how much was based on myth and religion is disputed.