Geocentric model

Figure of the heavenly bodies — An illustration of the

Ptolemaic geocentric system by Portuguese
cosmographer and cartographer Bartolomeu Velho,
1568 (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris)

In astronomy, the geocentric model (also

known as geocentrism, or the Ptolemaic
system) is a superseded description of the
Universe with Earth at the center. Under
the geocentric model, the Sun, Moon,
stars, and planets all orbited Earth.[1] The
geocentric model served as the
predominant description of the cosmos in
many ancient civilizations, such as those
of Aristotle and Ptolemy.

Two observations supported the idea that

Earth was the center of the Universe. First,
from anywhere on Earth, the Sun appears
to revolve around Earth once per day.
While the Moon and the planets have their
own motions, they also appear to revolve
around Earth about once per day. The
stars appeared to be fixed on a celestial
sphere rotating once each day about an
axis through the geographic poles of
Earth.[2] Second, Earth seems to be
unmoving from the perspective of an
earthbound observer; it feels solid, stable,
and stationary.

Ancient Greek, ancient Roman, and

medieval philosophers usually combined
the geocentric model with a spherical
Earth, in contrast to the older flat Earth
model implied in some mythology.[n 1][n 2][5]
The ancient Jewish Babylonian
uranography pictured a flat Earth with a
dome-shaped, rigid canopy called the
firmament placed over it (‫רקיע‬-
rāqîa').[n 3][n 4][n 5][n 6][n 7][n 8] However, the
ancient Greeks believed that the motions
of the planets were circular and not
elliptical, a view that was not challenged in
Western culture until the 17th century,
when Johannes Kepler postulated that
orbits were heliocentric and elliptical
(Kepler's first law of planetary motion). In
1687, Newton showed that elliptical orbits
could be derived from his laws of
gravitation.

The astronomical predictions of Ptolemy's

geocentric model were used to prepare
astrological and astronomical charts for
over 1500 years. The geocentric model
held sway into the early modern age, but
from the late 16th century onward, it was
gradually superseded by the heliocentric
model of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler.
There was much resistance to the
transition between these two theories.
Some Christian theologians were reluctant
to reject a theory that agreed with Biblical
passages. Others felt a new, unknown
theory could not subvert an accepted
consensus for geocentrism.

Ancient Greece
Illustration of Anaximander's models of the universe.
On the left, summer; on the right, winter.

The geocentric model entered Greek

astronomy and philosophy at an early
point; it can be found in pre-Socratic
philosophy. In the 6th century BC,
Anaximander proposed a cosmology with
Earth shaped like a section of a pillar (a
cylinder), held aloft at the center of
everything. The Sun, Moon, and planets
were holes in invisible wheels surrounding
Earth; through the holes, humans could
see concealed fire. About the same time,
Pythagoras thought that the Earth was a
sphere (in accordance with observations
of eclipses), but not at the center; they
believed that it was in motion around an
unseen fire. Later these views were
combined, so most educated Greeks from
the 4th century BC on thought that the
Earth was a sphere at the center of the
universe.[12]

In the 4th century BC, two influential Greek

philosophers, Plato and his student
Aristotle, wrote works based on the
geocentric model. According to Plato, the
Earth was a sphere, stationary at the
center of the universe. The stars and
planets were carried around the Earth on
spheres or circles, arranged in the order
(outwards from the center): Moon, Sun,
Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, fixed
stars, with the fixed stars located on the
celestial sphere. In his "Myth of Er", a
section of the Republic, Plato describes
the cosmos as the Spindle of Necessity,
attended by the Sirens and turned by the
three Fates. Eudoxus of Cnidus, who
worked with Plato, developed a less
mythical, more mathematical explanation
of the planets' motion based on Plato's
dictum stating that all phenomena in the
heavens can be explained with uniform
circular motion. Aristotle elaborated on
Eudoxus' system.

In the fully developed Aristotelian system,

the spherical Earth is at the center of the
universe, and all other heavenly bodies are
attached to 47–55 transparent, rotating
spheres surrounding the Earth, all
concentric with it. (The number is so high
because several spheres are needed for
each planet.) These spheres, known as
crystalline spheres, all moved at different
uniform speeds to create the revolution of
bodies around the Earth. They were
composed of an incorruptible substance
called aether. Aristotle believed that the
moon was in the innermost sphere and
therefore touches the realm of Earth,
causing the dark spots (macula) and the
ability to go through lunar phases. He
further described his system by explaining
the natural tendencies of the terrestrial
elements: Earth, water, fire, air, as well as
celestial aether. His system held that Earth
was the heaviest element, with the
strongest movement towards the center,
thus water formed a layer surrounding the
sphere of Earth. The tendency of air and
fire, on the other hand, was to move
upwards, away from the center, with fire
being lighter than air. Beyond the layer of
fire, were the solid spheres of aether in
which the celestial bodies were
embedded. They, themselves, were also
entirely composed of aether.

Adherence to the geocentric model

stemmed largely from several important
observations. First of all, if the Earth did
move, then one ought to be able to
observe the shifting of the fixed stars due
to stellar parallax. In short, if the Earth was
moving, the shapes of the constellations
should change considerably over the
course of a year. If they did not appear to
move, the stars are either much farther
away than the Sun and the planets than
previously conceived, making their motion
undetectable, or in reality they are not
moving at all. Because the stars were
actually much further away than Greek
astronomers postulated (making
movement extremely subtle), stellar
parallax was not detected until the 19th
century. Therefore, the Greeks chose the
simpler of the two explanations. Another
observation used in favor of the geocentric
model at the time was the apparent
consistency of Venus' luminosity, which
implies that it is usually about the same
distance from Earth, which in turn is more
consistent with geocentrism than
heliocentrism. In reality, that is because
the loss of light caused by Venus' phases
compensates for the increase in apparent
size caused by its varying distance from
Earth. Objectors to heliocentrism noted
that terrestrial bodies naturally tend to
come to rest as near as possible to the
center of the Earth. Further barring the
opportunity to fall closer the center,
terrestrial bodies tend not to move unless
forced by an outside object, or
transformed to a different element by heat
or moisture.

Atmospheric explanations for many

phenomena were preferred because the
Eudoxan–Aristotelian model based on
perfectly concentric spheres was not
intended to explain changes in the
brightness of the planets due to a change
in distance.[13] Eventually, perfectly
concentric spheres were abandoned as it
was impossible to develop a sufficiently
accurate model under that ideal. However,
while providing for similar explanations,
the later deferent and epicycle model was
flexible enough to accommodate
observations for many centuries.

Ptolemaic model
The basic elements of Ptolemaic astronomy, showing
a planet on an epicycle with an eccentric deferent
and an equant point. The Green shaded area is the
celestial sphere which the planet occupies.

Although the basic tenets of Greek

geocentrism were established by the time
of Aristotle, the details of his system did
not become standard. The Ptolemaic
system, developed by the Hellenistic
astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus in the
2nd century AD finally standardised
geocentrism. His main astronomical work,
the Almagest, was the culmination of
centuries of work by Hellenic, Hellenistic
and Babylonian astronomers. For over a
millennium European and Islamic
astronomers assumed it was the correct
cosmological model. Because of its
influence, people sometimes wrongly think
the Ptolemaic system is identical with the
geocentric model.

Ptolemy argued that the Earth was a

sphere in the center of the universe, from
the simple observation that half the stars
were above the horizon and half were
below the horizon at any time (stars on
rotating stellar sphere), and the
assumption that the stars were all at some
modest distance from the center of the
universe. If the Earth was substantially
displaced from the center, this division into
visible and invisible stars would not be
equal.[n 9]

Ptolemaic system

Pages from 1550 Annotazione on Sacrobosco's

Tractatus de Sphaera, showing the Ptolemaic
system.
In the Ptolemaic system, each planet is
moved by a system of two spheres: one
called its deferent; the other, its epicycle.
The deferent is a circle whose center point,
called the eccentric and marked in the
diagram with an X, is removed from the
Earth. The original purpose of the
eccentric was to account for the
difference in length of the seasons
(northern autumn was about five days
shorter than spring during this time period)
by placing the Earth away from the center
of rotation of the rest of the universe.
Another sphere, the epicycle, is embedded
inside the deferent sphere and is
represented by the smaller dotted line to
the right. A given planet then moves
around the epicycle at the same time the
epicycle moves along the path marked by
the deferent. These combined movements
cause the given planet to move closer to
and further away from the Earth at
different points in its orbit, and explained
the observation that planets slowed down,
stopped, and moved backward in
retrograde motion, and then again
reversed to resume normal, or prograde,
motion.

The deferent-and-epicycle model had been

used by Greek astronomers for centuries
along with the idea of the eccentric (a
deferent which is slightly off-center from
the Earth), which was even older. In the
illustration, the center of the deferent is
not the Earth but the spot marked X,
making it eccentric (from the Greek ἐκ ec-
meaning "from," and κέντρον kentron
meaning "center"), from which the spot
takes its name. Unfortunately, the system
that was available in Ptolemy's time did
not quite match observations, even though
it was considerably improved over
Hipparchus' system. Most noticeably the
size of a planet's retrograde loop
(especially that of Mars) would be smaller,
and sometimes larger, than expected,
resulting in positional errors of as much as
30 degrees. To alleviate the problem,
Ptolemy developed the equant. The equant
was a point near the center of a planet's
orbit which, if you were to stand there and
watch, the center of the planet's epicycle
would always appear to move at uniform
speed; all other locations would see non-
uniform speed, like on the Earth. By using
an equant, Ptolemy claimed to keep
motion which was uniform and circular,
although it departed from the Platonic
ideal of uniform circular motion. The
resultant system, which eventually came
to be widely accepted in the west, seems
unwieldy to modern astronomers; each
planet required an epicycle revolving on a
deferent, offset by an equant which was
different for each planet. It predicted
various celestial motions, including the
beginning and end of retrograde motion, to
within a maximum error of 10 degrees,
considerably better than without the
equant.

The model with epicycles is in fact a very

good model of an elliptical orbit with low
eccentricity. The well known ellipse shape
does not appear to a noticeable extent
when the eccentricity is less than 5%, but
the offset distance of the "center" (in fact
the focus occupied by the sun) is very
noticeable even with low eccentricities as
possessed by the planets.

To summarize, Ptolemy devised a system

that was compatible with Aristotelian
philosophy and managed to track actual
observations and predict future movement
mostly to within the limits of the next 1000
years of observations. The observed
motions and his mechanisms for
explaining them include:
The Ptolemaic System
Object(s) Observation Modeling mechanism

Motion of entire sky E to Stars: Daily motion E to W of sphere of stars, carrying all
Stars W in ~24 hrs ("first other spheres with it; normally ignored; other spheres
motion") have additional motions

Motion yearly W to E
Sun Motion of Sun's sphere W to E in year
along ecliptic

Non-uniform rate along

Sun Eccentric orbit (Sun's deferent center off Earth)
ecliptic (uneven seasons)

Monthly motion W to E
Moon Monthly W to E motion of Moon's sphere
compared to stars

The 5 General motion W to E Motion of deferents W to E; period set by observation of

planets through zodiac planet going around the ecliptic

Motion of epicycle in same direction as deferent. Period

Planets Retrograde motion of epicycle is time between retrograde motions (synodic
period).

Variations in speed
Planets Eccentric per planet
through the zodiac

Variations in retrograde Equants per planet (Copernicus used a pair of epicycles

Planets
timing instead)

Only ratio between radius of deferent and associated

Size of deferents,
Planets epicycle determined; absolute distances not determined
epicycles
in theory

Average greatest
Interior Size of epicycles set by these angles, proportional to
elongations of 23°
planets distances
(Mercury) and 46° (Venus)

Interior Limited to movement near

Center their deferent centers along the Sun–Earth line
planets the Sun

Retrograde only at
Exterior
opposition, when Radii of epicycles aligned to Sun–Earth line
planets
brightest
The geocentric model was eventually
replaced by the heliocentric model. The
earliest heliocentric model, Copernican
heliocentrism, could remove Ptolemy's
epicycles because the retrograde motion
could be seen to be the result of the
combination of Earth and planet
movement and speeds. Copernicus felt
strongly that equants were a violation of
Aristotelian purity, and proved that
replacement of the equant with a pair of
new epicycles was entirely equivalent.
Astronomers often continued using the
equants instead of the epicycles because
the former was easier to calculate, and
gave the same result.
It has been determined, in fact, that the
Copernican, Ptolemaic and even the
Tychonic models provided identical results
to identical inputs. They are
computationally equivalent. It wasn't until
Kepler demonstrated a physical
observation that could show that the
physical sun is directly involved in
determining an orbit that a new model was
required.

The Ptolemaic order of spheres from Earth

outward is:[15]

1. Moon
2. Mercury
3. Venus
4. Sun
5. Mars
6. Jupiter
7. Saturn
8. Fixed Stars
9. Primum Mobile ("First Moved")

Ptolemy did not invent or work out this

order, which aligns with the ancient Seven
Heavens religious cosmology common to
the major Eurasian religious traditions. It
also follows the decreasing orbital periods
of the moon, sun, planets and stars.

Islamic astronomy and

geocentrism

Muslim astronomers generally accepted

the Ptolemaic system and the geocentric
model,[16] but by the 10th century texts
appeared regularly whose subject matter
was doubts concerning Ptolemy
(shukūk).[17] Several Muslim scholars
questioned the Earth's apparent
immobility[18][19] and centrality within the
universe.[20] Some Muslim astronomers
believed that the Earth rotates around its
axis, such as Abu Sa'id al-Sijzi (d. circa
1020).[21][22] According to al-Biruni, Sijzi
invented an astrolabe called al-zūraqī
based on a belief held by some of his
contemporaries "that the motion we see is
due to the Earth's movement and not to
that of the sky."[22][23] The prevalence of
this view is further confirmed by a
reference from the 13th century which
states:

According to the geometers [or

engineers] (muhandisīn), the
Earth is in constant circular
motion, and what appears to be
the motion of the heavens is
actually due to the motion of the
Earth and not the stars.[22]
Early in the 11th century Alhazen wrote a
scathing critique of Ptolemy's model in his
Doubts on Ptolemy (c. 1028), which some
have interpreted to imply he was criticizing
Ptolemy's geocentrism,[24] but most agree
that he was actually criticizing the details
of Ptolemy's model rather than his
geocentrism.[25]

In the 12th century, Arzachel departed

from the ancient Greek idea of uniform
circular motions by hypothesizing that the
planet Mercury moves in an elliptic
orbit,[26][27] while Alpetragius proposed a
planetary model that abandoned the
equant, epicycle and eccentric
mechanisms,[28] though this resulted in a
system that was mathematically less
accurate.[29] Alpetragius also declared the
Ptolemaic system as an imaginary model
that was successful at predicting
planetary positions but not real or
physical. His alternative system spread
through most of Europe during the 13th
century.[30]

Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149–1209), in

dealing with his conception of physics and
the physical world in his Matalib, rejects
the Aristotelian and Avicennian notion of
the Earth's centrality within the universe,
but instead argues that there are "a
thousand thousand worlds (alfa alfi
'awalim) beyond this world such that each
one of those worlds be bigger and more
massive than this world as well as having
the like of what this world has." To support
his theological argument, he cites the
Qur'anic verse, "All praise belongs to God,
Lord of the Worlds," emphasizing the term
"Worlds."[20]

The "Maragha Revolution" refers to the

Maragha school's revolution against
Ptolemaic astronomy. The "Maragha
school" was an astronomical tradition
beginning in the Maragha observatory and
continuing with astronomers from the
Damascus mosque and Samarkand
observatory. Like their Andalusian
predecessors, the Maragha astronomers
attempted to solve the equant problem
(the circle around whose circumference a
planet or the center of an epicycle was
conceived to move uniformly) and produce
alternative configurations to the Ptolemaic
model without abandoning geocentrism.
They were more successful than their
Andalusian predecessors in producing
non-Ptolemaic configurations which
eliminated the equant and eccentrics, were
more accurate than the Ptolemaic model
in numerically predicting planetary
positions, and were in better agreement
with empirical observations.[31] The most
important of the Maragha astronomers
included Mo'ayyeduddin Urdi (d. 1266),
Nasīr al-Dīn al-Tūsī (1201–1274), Qutb al-
Din al-Shirazi (1236–1311), Ibn al-Shatir
(1304–1375), Ali Qushji (c. 1474), Al-
Birjandi (d. 1525), and Shams al-Din al-
Khafri (d. 1550).[32] Ibn al-Shatir, the
Damascene astronomer (1304–1375 AD)
working at the Umayyad Mosque, wrote a
major book entitled Kitab Nihayat al-Sul fi
Tashih al-Usul (A Final Inquiry Concerning
the Rectification of Planetary Theory) on a
theory which departs largely from the
Ptolemaic system known at that time. In
his book, Ibn al-Shatir, an Arab astronomer
of the fourteenth century, E. S. Kennedy
wrote "what is of most interest, however, is
that Ibn al-Shatir's lunar theory, except for
trivial differences in parameters, is
identical with that of Copernicus (1473–
1543 AD)." The discovery that the models
of Ibn al-Shatir are mathematically
identical to those of Copernicus suggests
the possible transmission of these models
to Europe.[33] At the Maragha and
Samarkand observatories, the Earth's
rotation was discussed by al-Tusi and Ali
Qushji (b. 1403); the arguments and
evidence they used resemble those used
by Copernicus to support the Earth's
motion.[18][19]
However, the Maragha school never made
the paradigm shift to heliocentrism.[34] The
influence of the Maragha school on
Copernicus remains speculative, since
there is no documentary evidence to prove
it. The possibility that Copernicus
independently developed the Tusi couple
remains open, since no researcher has yet
demonstrated that he knew about Tusi's
work or that of the Maragha school.[34][35]

Geocentrism and rival

systems
This drawing from an Icelandic manuscript dated
around 1750 illustrates the geocentric model.

Not all Greeks agreed with the geocentric

model. The Pythagorean system has
already been mentioned; some
Pythagoreans believed the Earth to be one
of several planets going around a central
fire.[36] Hicetas and Ecphantus, two
Pythagoreans of the 5th century BC, and
Heraclides Ponticus in the 4th century BC,
believed that the Earth rotated on its axis
but remained at the center of the
universe.[37] Such a system still qualifies
as geocentric. It was revived in the Middle
Ages by Jean Buridan. Heraclides
Ponticus was once thought to have
proposed that both Venus and Mercury
went around the Sun rather than the Earth,
but this is no longer accepted.[38]
Martianus Capella definitely put Mercury
and Venus in orbit around the Sun.[39]
Aristarchus of Samos was the most
radical. He wrote a work, which has not
survived, on heliocentrism, saying that the
Sun was at the center of the universe,
while the Earth and other planets revolved
around it.[40] His theory was not popular,
and he had one named follower, Seleucus
of Seleucia.[41]

Copernican system

In 1543, the geocentric system met its first

serious challenge with the publication of
Copernicus' De revolutionibus orbium
coelestium (On the Revolutions of the
Heavenly Spheres), which posited that the
Earth and the other planets instead
revolved around the Sun. The geocentric
system was still held for many years
afterwards, as at the time the Copernican
system did not offer better predictions
than the geocentric system, and it posed
problems for both natural philosophy and
scripture. The Copernican system was no
more accurate than Ptolemy's system,
because it still used circular orbits. This
was not altered until Johannes Kepler
postulated that they were elliptical
(Kepler's first law of planetary motion).

With the invention of the telescope in

1609, observations made by Galileo Galilei
(such as that Jupiter has moons) called
into question some of the tenets of
geocentrism but did not seriously threaten
it. Because he observed dark "spots" on
the moon, craters, he remarked that the
moon was not a perfect celestial body as
had been previously conceived. This was
the first time someone could see
imperfections on a celestial body that was
supposed to be composed of perfect
aether. As such, because the moon's
imperfections could now be related to
those seen on Earth, one could argue that
neither was unique: rather, they were both
just celestial bodies made from Earth-like
material. Galileo could also see the moons
of Jupiter, which he dedicated to Cosimo II
de' Medici, and stated that they orbited
around Jupiter, not Earth.[42] This was a
significant claim as it would mean not only
that not everything revolved around Earth
as stated in the Ptolemaic model, but also
showed a secondary celestial body could
orbit a moving celestial body,
strengthening the heliocentric argument
that a moving Earth could retain the
Moon.[43] Galileo's observations were
verified by other astronomers of the time
period who quickly adopted use of the
telescope, including Christoph Scheiner,
Johannes Kepler, and Giovan Paulo
Lembo.[44]
Phases of Venus

In December 1610, Galileo Galilei used his

telescope to observe that Venus showed
all phases, just like the Moon. He thought
that while this observation was
incompatible with the Ptolemaic system, it
was a natural consequence of the
heliocentric system.

However, Ptolemy placed Venus' deferent

and epicycle entirely inside the sphere of
the Sun (between the Sun and Mercury),
but this was arbitrary; he could just as
easily have swapped Venus and Mercury
and put them on the other side of the Sun,
or made any other arrangement of Venus
and Mercury, as long as they were always
near a line running from the Earth through
the Sun, such as placing the center of the
Venus epicycle near the Sun. In this case,
if the Sun is the source of all the light,
under the Ptolemaic system:

If Venus is between Earth and

the Sun, the phase of Venus must
always be crescent or all dark.

If Venus is beyond the Sun, the

phase of Venus must always be
gibbous or full.
But Galileo saw Venus at first small and
full, and later large and crescent.

In this depiction of the Tychonic system, the objects

on blue orbits (the moon and the sun) revolve around
the Earth. The objects on orange orbits (Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) revolve around the
sun. Around all is a sphere of stars, which rotates.

This showed that with a Ptolemaic

cosmology, the Venus epicycle can be
neither completely inside nor completely
outside of the orbit of the Sun. As a result,
Ptolemaics abandoned the idea that the
epicycle of Venus was completely inside
the Sun, and later 17th century
competition between astronomical
cosmologies focused on variations of
Tycho Brahe's Tychonic system (in which
the Earth was still at the center of the
universe, and around it revolved the Sun,
but all other planets revolved around the
Sun in one massive set of epicycles), or
variations on the Copernican system.

Gravitation
Johannes Kepler analysed Tycho Brahe's
famously accurate observations and
afterwards constructed his three laws in
1609 and 1619, based on a heliocentric
view where the planets move in elliptical
paths. Using these laws, he was the first
astronomer to successfully predict a
transit of Venus (for the year 1631). The
change from circular orbits to elliptical
planetary paths dramatically improved the
accuracy of celestial observations and
predictions. Because the heliocentric
model devised by Copernicus was no more
accurate than Ptolemy's system, new
observations were needed to persuade
those who still adhered to the geocentric
model. However, Kepler's laws based on
Brahe's data became a problem which
geocentrists could not easily overcome.

In 1687, Isaac Newton stated the law of

universal gravitation, described earlier as a
hypothesis by Robert Hooke and others.
His main achievement was to
mathematically derive Kepler's laws of
planetary motion from the law of
gravitation, thus helping to prove the latter.
This introduced gravitation as the force
which both kept the Earth and planets
moving through the universe and also kept
the atmosphere from flying away. The
theory of gravity allowed scientists to
rapidly construct a plausible heliocentric
model for the solar system. In his
Principia, Newton explained his theory of
how gravity, previously thought to be a
mysterious, unexplained occult force,
directed the movements of celestial
bodies, and kept our solar system in
working order. His descriptions of
centripetal force[45] were a breakthrough in
scientific thought, using the newly
developed mathematical discipline of
differential calculus, finally replacing the
previous schools of scientific thought,
which had been dominated by Aristotle
and Ptolemy. However, the process was
gradual.
Several empirical tests of Newton's theory,
explaining the longer period of oscillation
of a pendulum at the equator and the
differing size of a degree of latitude, would
gradually become available between 1673
and 1738. In addition, stellar aberration
was observed by Robert Hooke in 1674,
and tested in a series of observations by
Jean Picard over a period of ten years,
finishing in 1680. However, it was not
explained until 1729, when James Bradley
provided an approximate explanation in
terms of the Earth's revolution about the
sun.
In 1838, astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm
Bessel measured the parallax of the star
61 Cygni successfully, and disproved
Ptolemy's claim that parallax motion did
not exist. This finally confirmed the
assumptions made by Copernicus,
providing accurate, dependable scientific
observations, and conclusively displaying
how distant stars are from Earth.

A geocentric frame is useful for many

everyday activities and most laboratory
experiments, but is a less appropriate
choice for solar system mechanics and
space travel. While a heliocentric frame is
most useful in those cases, galactic and
extragalactic astronomy is easier if the
sun is treated as neither stationary nor the
center of the universe, but rather rotating
around the center of our galaxy, while in
turn our galaxy is also not at rest in the
cosmic background.

Relativity
Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld wrote in
The Evolution of Physics (1938): "Can we
formulate physical laws so that they are
valid for all CS (=coordinate systems), not
only those moving uniformly, but also
those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to
each other? If this can be done, our
difficulties will be over. We shall then be
able to apply the laws of nature to any CS.
The struggle, so violent in the early days of
science, between the views of Ptolemy
and Copernicus would then be quite
meaningless. Either CS could be used with
equal justification. The two sentences, 'the
sun is at rest and the Earth moves', or 'the
sun moves and the Earth is at rest', would
simply mean two different conventions
concerning two different CS. Could we
build a real relativistic physics valid in all
CS; a physics in which there would be no
place for absolute, but only for relative,
motion? This is indeed possible!"[46]
Despite giving more respectability to the
geocentric view than Newtonian physics
does,[47] relativity is not geocentric. Rather,
relativity states that the Sun, the Earth, the
Moon, Jupiter, or any other point for that
matter could be chosen as a center of the
solar system with equal validity.[48] For this
reason Robert Sungenis, a modern
geocentrist, spent much of Volume I of his
book Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was
Right critiquing and trying to unravel the
Special and General theories of
Relativity.[49]

Relativity agrees with Newtonian

predictions that regardless of whether the
Sun or the Earth are chosen arbitrarily as
the center of the coordinate system
describing the solar system, the paths of
the planets form (roughly) ellipses with
respect to the Sun, not the Earth. With
respect to the average reference frame of
the fixed stars, the planets do indeed move
around the Sun, which due to its much
larger mass, moves far less than its own
diameter and the gravity of which is
dominant in determining the orbits of the
planets. (In other words, the center of
mass of the solar system is near the
center of the Sun.) The Earth and Moon
are much closer to being a binary planet;
the center of mass around which they both
rotate is still inside the Earth, but is about
4,624 km (2,873 mi) or 72.6% of the Earth's
radius away from the centre of the Earth
(thus closer to the surface than the
center).

What the principle of relativity points out is

that correct mathematical calculations
can be made regardless of the reference
frame chosen, and these will all agree with
each other as to the predictions of actual
motions of bodies with respect to each
other. It is not necessary to choose the
object in the solar system with the largest
gravitational field as the center of the
coordinate system in order to predict the
motions of planetary bodies, though doing
so may make calculations easier to
perform or interpret. A geocentric
coordinate system can be more
convenient when dealing only with bodies
mostly influenced by the gravity of the
Earth (such as artificial satellites and the
Moon), or when calculating what the sky
will look like when viewed from Earth (as
opposed to an imaginary observer looking
down on the entire solar system, where a
different coordinate system might be more
convenient).

Religious and contemporary

adherence to geocentrism
Map of the Square and Stationary Earth, by Orlando
Ferguson (1893)

The Ptolemaic model of the solar system

held sway into the early modern age; from
the late 16th century onward it was
gradually replaced as the consensus
description by the heliocentric model.
Geocentrism as a separate religious belief,
however, never completely died out. In the
United States between 1870 and 1920, for
example, various members of the Lutheran
Church–Missouri Synod published articles
disparaging Copernican astronomy, and
geocentrism was widely taught within the
synod during that period.[50] However, in
the 1902 Theological Quarterly, A. L.
Graebner claimed that the synod had no
doctrinal position on geocentrism,
heliocentrism, or any scientific model,
unless it were to contradict Scripture. He
stated that any possible declarations of
geocentrists within the synod did not set
the position of the church body as a
whole.[51]
Articles arguing that geocentrism was the
biblical perspective appeared in some
early creation science newsletters pointing
to some passages in the Bible, which,
when taken literally, indicate that the daily
apparent motions of the Sun and the Moon
are due to their actual motions around the
Earth rather than due to the rotation of the
Earth about its axis. For example, in
Joshua 10:12 , the Sun and Moon are said
to stop in the sky, and in Psalms the world
is described as immobile.[52] Psalms 93:1
says in part "the world is established, firm
and secure".) Contemporary advocates for
such religious beliefs include Robert
Sungenis (president of Bellarmine
Theological Forum and author of the 2006
book Galileo Was Wrong).[53] These people
subscribe to the view that a plain reading
of the Bible contains an accurate account
of the manner in which the universe was
created and requires a geocentric
worldview. Most contemporary creationist
organizations reject such
perspectives.[n 10]

After all, Copernicanism was the

first major victory of science
over religion, so it's inevitable
that some folks would think that
 everything that's wrong with the
world began there.

— Steven Dutch of the

University of Wisconsin–
Madison[55]

Polls

Morris Berman quotes a 2006 survey that

show currently some 20% of the U.S.
population believe that the sun goes
around the Earth (geocentricism) rather
than the Earth goes around the sun
(heliocentricism), while a further 9%
claimed not to know.[56] Polls conducted
by Gallup in the 1990s found that 16% of
Germans, 18% of Americans and 19% of
Britons hold that the Sun revolves around
the Earth.[57] A study conducted in 2005 by
Jon D. Miller of Northwestern University,
an expert in the public understanding of
science and technology,[58] found that
about 20%, or one in five, of American
adults believe that the Sun orbits the
Earth.[59] According to 2011 VTSIOM poll,
32% of Russians believe that the Sun
orbits the Earth.[60]

Historical positions of the

Roman Catholic hierarchy
The famous Galileo affair pitted the
geocentric model against the claims of
Galileo. In regards to the theological basis
for such an argument, two Popes
addressed the question of whether the use
of phenomenological language would
compel one to admit an error in Scripture.
Both taught that it would not. Pope Leo XIII
(1878–1903) wrote:

we have to contend against

those who, making an evil use of
physical science, minutely
scrutinize the Sacred Book in
order to detect the writers in a
mistake, and to take occasion to
vilify its contents. ... There can
never, indeed, be any real
discrepancy between the
theologian and the physicist, as
long as each confines himself
within his own lines, and both
are careful, as St. Augustine
warns us, "not to make rash
assertions, or to assert what is
not known as known". If
dissension should arise between
them, here is the rule also laid
down by St. Augustine, for the
theologian: "Whatever they can
really demonstrate to be true of
physical nature, we must show
to be capable of reconciliation
with our Scriptures; and
whatever they assert in their
treatises which is contrary to
these Scriptures of ours, that is
to Catholic faith, we must either
prove it as well as we can to be
entirely false, or at all events we
must, without the smallest
hesitation, believe it to be so." To
understand how just is the rule
here formulated we must
remember, first, that the sacred
writers, or to speak more
accurately, the Holy Ghost "Who
spoke by them, did not intend to
teach men these things (that is
to say, the essential nature of the
things of the visible universe),
things in no way profitable unto
salvation." Hence they did not
seek to penetrate the secrets of
nature, but rather described and
dealt with things in more or less
figurative language, or in terms
which were commonly used at
the time, and which in many
instances are in daily use at this
day, even by the most eminent
men of science. Ordinary speech
primarily and properly
describes what comes under the
senses; and somewhat in the
same way the sacred writers-as
the Angelic Doctor also reminds
us – "went by what sensibly
appeared", or put down what
God, speaking to men, signified,
in the way men could
 understand and were
accustomed to.

— Providentissimus Deus 18

Maurice Finocchiaro, author of a book on

the Galileo affair, notes that this is "a view
of the relationship between biblical
interpretation and scientific investigation
that corresponds to the one advanced by
Galileo in the "Letter to the Grand Duchess
Christina".[61] Pope Pius XII (1939–1958)
repeated his predecessor's teaching:

The first and greatest care of

Leo XIII was to set forth the
teaching on the truth of the
Sacred Books and to defend it
from attack. Hence with grave
words did he proclaim that
there is no error whatsoever if
the sacred writer, speaking of
things of the physical order
"went by what sensibly
appeared" as the Angelic Doctor
says, speaking either "in
figurative language, or in terms
which were commonly used at
the time, and which in many
instances are in daily use at this
day, even among the most
eminent men of science". For
"the sacred writers, or to speak
more accurately – the words are
St. Augustine's – the Holy Spirit,
Who spoke by them, did not
intend to teach men these things
– that is the essential nature of
the things of the universe –
things in no way profitable to
salvation"; which principle "will
apply to cognate sciences, and
especially to history", that is, by
refuting, "in a somewhat similar
 way the fallacies of the
adversaries and defending the
historical truth of Sacred
Scripture from their attacks".

— Divino afflante Spiritu, 3

In 1664, Pope Alexander VII republished

the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of
Prohibited Books) and attached the
various decrees connected with those
books, including those concerned with
heliocentrism. He stated in a Papal Bull
that his purpose in doing so was that "the
succession of things done from the
beginning might be made known [quo rei
ab initio gestae series innotescat]".[62]

The position of the curia evolved slowly

over the centuries towards permitting the
heliocentric view. In 1757, during the
papacy of Benedict XIV, the Congregation
of the Index withdrew the decree which
prohibited all books teaching the Earth's
motion, although the Dialogue and a few
other books continued to be explicitly
included. In 1820, the Congregation of the
Holy Office, with the pope's approval,
decreed that Catholic astronomer
Giuseppe Settele was allowed to treat the
Earth's motion as an established fact and
removed any obstacle for Catholics to hold
to the motion of the Earth:

The Assessor of the Holy Office

has referred the request of
Giuseppe Settele, Professor of
Optics and Astronomy at La
Sapienza University, regarding
permission to publish his work
Elements of Astronomy in which
he espouses the common
opinion of the astronomers of
our time regarding the Earth’s
daily and yearly motions, to His
Holiness through Divine
Providence, Pope Pius VII.
Previously, His Holiness had
referred this request to the
Supreme Sacred Congregation
and concurrently to the
consideration of the Most
Eminent and Most Reverend
General Cardinal Inquisitor. His
Holiness has decreed that no
obstacles exist for those who
sustain Copernicus' affirmation
regarding the Earth's movement
in the manner in which it is
affirmed today, even by Catholic
authors. He has, moreover,
suggested the insertion of
several notations into this work,
aimed at demonstrating that the
above mentioned affirmation [of
Copernicus], as it has come to be
understood, does not present
any difficulties; difficulties that
existed in times past, prior to
the subsequent astronomical
observations that have now
occurred. [Pope Pius VII] has
also recommended that the
implementation [of these
decisions] be given to the
Cardinal Secretary of the
Supreme Sacred Congregation
and Master of the Sacred
Apostolic Palace. He is now
appointed the task of bringing to
an end any concerns and
criticisms regarding the printing
of this book, and, at the same
time, ensuring that in the future,
regarding the publication of
such works, permission is
sought from the Cardinal Vicar
 whose signature will not be
given without the authorization
of the Superior of his Order.[63]

In 1822, the Congregation of the Holy

Office removed the prohibition on the
publication of books treating of the Earth's
motion in accordance with modern
astronomy and Pope Pius VII ratified the
decision:

The most excellent [cardinals]

have decreed that there must be
no denial, by the present or by
future Masters of the Sacred
Apostolic Palace, of permission
to print and to publish works
which treat of the mobility of the
Earth and of the immobility of
the sun, according to the
common opinion of modern
astronomers, as long as there
are no other contrary
indications, on the basis of the
decrees of the Sacred
Congregation of the Index of
1757 and of this Supreme [Holy
Office] of 1820; and that those
 who would show themselves to
be reluctant or would disobey,
should be forced under
punishments at the choice of
[this] Sacred Congregation, with
derogation of [their] claimed
privileges, where necessary.[64]

The 1835 edition of the Catholic Index of

Prohibited Books for the first time omits
the Dialogue from the list.[61] In his 1921
papal encyclical, In praeclara summorum,
Pope Benedict XV stated that, "though this
Earth on which we live may not be the
center of the universe as at one time was
thought, it was the scene of the original
happiness of our first ancestors, witness
of their unhappy fall, as too of the
Redemption of mankind through the
Passion and Death of Jesus Christ".[65] In
1965 the Second Vatican Council stated
that, "Consequently, we cannot but deplore
certain habits of mind, which are
sometimes found too among Christians,
which do not sufficiently attend to the
rightful independence of science and
which, from the arguments and
controversies they spark, lead many minds
to conclude that faith and science are
mutually opposed."[66] The footnote on this
statement is to Msgr. Pio Paschini's, Vita e
opere di Galileo Galilei, 2 volumes, Vatican
Press (1964). Pope John Paul II regretted
the treatment which Galileo received, in a
speech to the Pontifical Academy of
Sciences in 1992. The Pope declared the
incident to be based on a "tragic mutual
miscomprehension". He further stated:

Cardinal Poupard has also

reminded us that the sentence of
1633 was not irreformable, and
that the debate which had not
ceased to evolve thereafter, was
closed in 1820 with the
imprimatur given to the work of
Canon Settele. ... The error of the
theologians of the time, when
they maintained the centrality of
the Earth, was to think that our
understanding of the physical
world's structure was, in some
way, imposed by the literal sense
of Sacred Scripture. Let us recall
the celebrated saying attributed
to Baronius "Spiritui Sancto
mentem fuisse nos docere
quomodo ad coelum eatur, non
quomodo coelum gradiatur". In
fact, the Bible does not concern
itself with the details of the
physical world, the
understanding of which is the
competence of human
experience and reasoning. There
exist two realms of knowledge,
one which has its source in
Revelation and one which
reason can discover by its own
power. To the latter belong
especially the experimental
sciences and philosophy. The
distinction between the two
realms of knowledge ought not
 to be understood as
opposition.[67]

Orthodox Judaism

A few Orthodox Jewish leaders maintain a

geocentric model of the universe based on
the aforementioned Biblical verses and an
interpretation of Maimonides to the effect
that he ruled that the Earth is orbited by
the sun.[68][69] The Lubavitcher Rebbe also
explained that geocentrism is defensible
based on the theory of Relativity, which
establishes that "when two bodies in
space are in motion relative to one
another, ... science declares with absolute
certainty that from the scientific point of
view both possibilities are equally valid,
namely that the Earth revolves around the
sun, or the sun revolves around the Earth",
although he also went on to refer to people
who believed in geocentrism as "remaining
in the world of Copernicus".[70]

The Zohar states: "The entire world and

those upon it, spin round in a circle like a
ball, both those at the bottom of the ball
and those at the top. All God's creatures,
wherever they live on the different parts of
the ball, look different (in color, in their
features) because the air is different in
each place, but they stand erect as all
other human beings, therefore, there are
places in the world where, when some
have light, others have darkness; when
some have day, others have night."[71]

While geocentrism is important in

Maimonides' calendar calculations,[72] the
great majority of Jewish religious scholars,
who accept the divinity of the Bible and
accept many of his rulings as legally
binding, do not believe that the Bible or
Maimonides command a belief in
geocentrism.[69][73]

Islam
Prominent cases of modern geocentrism
in Islam are very isolated. Very few
individuals promoted a geocentric view of
the universe. One of them was Ahmed
Raza Khan Barelvi, a Sunni scholar of
Indian subcontinent. He rejected the
heliocentric model and wrote a book[74]
that explains the movement of the sun,
moon and other planets around the Earth.
The Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia from
1993 to 1999, Ibn Baz also promoted the
geocentric view between 1966 and 1985.

Planetariums
The geocentric (Ptolemaic) model of the
solar system is still of interest to
planetarium makers, as, for technical
reasons, a Ptolemaic-type motion for the
planet light apparatus has some
advantages over a Copernican-type
motion.[75] The celestial sphere, still used
for teaching purposes and sometimes for
navigation, is also based on a geocentric
system[76] which in effect ignores parallax.
However this effect is negligible at the
scale of accuracy that applies to a
planetarium.

See also
 Celestial spheres
Firmament
Flat Earth
Religious cosmology
Sphere of fire

Notes
1. The Egyptian universe was substantially
similar to the Babylonian universe; it was
pictured as a rectangular box with a north-
south orientation and with a slightly
concave surface, with Egypt in the center.
A good idea of the similarly primitive state
of Hebrew astronomy can be gained from
Biblical writings, such as the Genesis
creation story and the various Psalms that
extol the firmament, the stars, the sun, and
the earth. The Hebrews saw the earth as
an almost flat surface consisting of a solid
and a liquid part, and the sky as the realm
of light in which heavenly bodies move.
The earth rested on cornerstones and
could not be moved except by Jehovah (as
in an earthquake). According to the
Hebrews, the sun and the moon were only
a short distance from one another[3]
2. The picture of the universe in Talmudic
texts has the Earth in the center of
creation with heaven as a hemisphere
spread over it. The Earth is usually
described as a disk encircled by water.
Cosmological and metaphysical
speculations were not to be cultivated in
public nor were they to be committed to
writing. Rather, they were considered as
"secrets of the Torah not to be passed on
to all and sundry" (Ketubot 112a). While
study of God's creation was not prohibited,
speculations about "what is above, what is
beneath, what is before, and what is after"
(Mishnah Hagigah: 2) were restricted to
the intellectual elite.[4]
3. "firmament – The division made by God,
according to the P account of creation, to
restrain the cosmic water and form the sky
(Genesis 1:6–8 ). Hebrew cosmology
pictured a flat earth, over which was a
dome-shaped firmament, supported above
the earth by mountains, and surrounded by
waters. Holes or sluices (windows, Gen. 7:
11) allowed the water to fall as rain. The
firmament was the heavens in which God
set the sun (Psalms 19:4 ) and the stars
(Genesis 1:4 ) on the fourth day of the
creation. There was more water under the
earth (Genesis 1:7 ) and during the Flood
the two great oceans joined up and
covered the earth; sheol was at the bottom
of the earth (Isa. 14: 9; Num. 16: 30)."[6]
4. The cosmographical structure assumed
by this text is the ancient, traditional flat
earth model that was common throughout
the Near East and that persisted in Jewish
tradition because of its place in the
religiously authoritative biblical
materials.[7]
5. “The term "firmament" (‫רקיע‬- rāqîa')
denotes the atmosphere between the
heavenly realm and the earth (Gen. 1:6–7,
20) where the celestial bodies move (Gen.
1:14–17). It can also be used as a
synonym for "heaven" (Gen. 1:8; Ps. 19:2).
This "firmament is part of the heavenly
structure whether it is the equivalent of
'heaven/sky' or is what separates it from
the earth. ... The ancient Israelites also
used more descriptive terms for how God
created the celestial realm, and based on
the collection of these more specific and
illustrative terms, I would propose that
they had two basic ideas of the
composition of the heavenly realm. First is
the idea that the heavenly realm was
imagined as a vast cosmic canopy. The
verb used to describe metaphorically how
God stretched out this canopy over earth
is ‫( הטנ‬nātāh) 'stretch out', or 'spread'. 'I
made the earth, and created humankind
upon it; it was my hands that stretched out
the heavens, and I commanded all their
host (Isa. 45:12).' In the Bible this verb is
used to describe the stretching out
(pitching) of a tent. Since the texts that
mention the stretching out of the sky are
typically drawing on creation imagery, it
seems that the figure intends to suggest
that the heavens are Yahweh's cosmic
tent. One can imagine ancient Israelites
gazing up to the stars and comparing the
canopy of the sky to the roofs of the tents
under which they lived. In fact, if one were
to look up at the ceiling of a dark tent with
small holes in the roof during the daytime,
the roof, with the sunlight shining through
the holes, would look very much like the
night sky with all its stars. The second
image of the material composition of the
heavenly realm involves a firm substance.
The term ‫( רקיע‬răqîa'), typically translated
'firmament', indicates the expanse above
the earth. The root ‫ רקע‬means 'stamp out'
or 'forge'. The idea of a solid, forged
surface fits well with Ezekiel 1 where God's
throne rests upon the ‫( רקיע‬răqîa').
According to Genesis 1, the ‫(רקיע‬rāqîa') is
the sphere of the celestial bodies (Gen.
1:6–8, 14–17; cf. ben Sira 43:8). It may be
that some imagined the ‫ עיקר‬to be a firm
substance on which the celestial bodies
rode during their daily journeys across the
sky."[8]
6. In the course of the Second Temple
Period Jews, and eventually Christians,
began to describe the universe in new
terms. The model of the universe inherited
form the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient
Near East of a flat earth completely
surrounded by water with a heavenly realm
of the gods arching above from horizon to
horizon became obsolete. In the past the
heavenly realm was for gods only. It was
the place where all events on earth were
determined by the gods, and their
decisions were irrevocable. The gulf
between the gods and humans could not
have been greater. The evolution of Jewish
cosmography in the course of the Second
Temple Period followed developments in
Hellenistic astronomy.[9]
7. What is described in Genesis 1:1 to 2:3
was the commonly accepted structure of
the universe from at least late in the
second millennium BCE to the fourth or
third century BCE. It represents a coherent
model for the experiences of the people of
Mesopotamia through that period. It
reflects a world-view that made sense of
water coming from the sky and the ground
as well as the regular apparent
movements of the stars, sun, moon, and
planets. There is a clear understanding of
the restrictions on breeding between
different species of animals and of the
way in which human beings had gained
control over what were, by then, domestic
animals. There is also recognition of the
ability of humans to change the
environment in which they lived. This
same understanding occurred also in the
great creation stories of Mesopotamia;
these stories formed the basis for the
Jewish theological reflections of the
Hebrew Scriptures concerning the creation
of the world. The Jewish priests and
theologians who constructed the narrative
took accepted ideas about the structure of
the world and reflected theologically on
them in the light of their experience and
faith. There was never any clash between
Jewish and Babylonian people about the
structure of the world, but only about who
was responsible for it and its ultimate
theological meaning. The envisaged
structure is simple: Earth was seen as
being situated in the middle of a great
volume of water, with water both above
and below Earth. A great dome was
thought to be set above Earth (like an
inverted glass bowl), maintaining the
water above Earth in its place. Earth was
pictured as resting on foundations that go
down into the deep. These foundations
secured the stability of the land as
something that is not floating on the water
and so could not be tossed about by wind
and wave. The waters surrounding Earth
were thought to have been gathered
together in their place. The stars, sun,
moon, and planets moved in their allotted
paths across the great dome above Earth,
with their movements defining the months,
seasons, and year.[10]
8. From Myth to Cosmos: The earliest
speculations about the origin and nature
of the world took the form of religious
myths. Almost all ancient cultures
developed cosmological stories to explain
the basic features of the cosmos: Earth
and its inhabitants, sky, sea, sun, moon,
and stars. For example, for the
Babylonians, the creation of the universe
was seen as born from a primeval pair of
human-like gods. In early Egyptian
cosmology, eclipses were explained as the
moon being swallowed temporarily by a
sow or as the sun being attacked by a
serpent. For the early Hebrews, whose
account is preserved in the biblical book of
Genesis, a single God created the universe
in stages within the relatively recent past.
Such pre-scientific cosmologies tended to
assume a flat Earth, a finite past, ongoing
active interference by deities or spirits in
the cosmic order, and stars and planets
(visible to the naked eye only as points of
light) that were different in nature from
Earth.[11]
9. This argument is given in Book I,
Chapter 5, of the Almagest.[14]
10. Donald B. DeYoung, for example,
states that "Similar terminology is often
used today when we speak of the sun's
rising and setting, even though the earth,
not the sun, is doing the moving. Bible
writers used the 'language of appearance,'
just as people always have. Without it, the
intended message would be awkward at
best and probably not understood clearly.
When the Bible touches on scientific
subjects, it is entirely accurate."[54]

References
1. Lawson, Russell M. (2004). Science in
the Ancient World: An Encyclopedia. ABC-
CLIO. pp. 29–30 . ISBN 1851095349.
2. Kuhn 1957, pp. 5–20.
3. Abetti, Giorgio (2012). "Cosmology".
Encyclopedia Americana (Online ed.).
Grolier.
4. Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava (2003). "Topic
Overview: Judaism". In van Huyssteen, J.
Wentzel Vrede. Encyclopedia of Science
and Religion. 2. New York: Macmillan
Reference USA. pp. 477–83.
5. Gandz, Solomon (1953). "The
distribution of land and sea on the Earth's
surface according to Hebrew sources".
Proceedings of the American Academy for
Jewish Research. 22: 23–53. "Like the
Midrash and the Talmud, the Targum does
not think of a globe of the spherical earth,
around which the sun revolves in 24 hours,
but of a flat disk of the earth, above which
the sun completes its semicircle in an
average of 12 hours."
6. Browning, W. R. F. (1997). "firmament".
Dictionary of the Bible (Oxford Reference
Online ed.). Oxford University Press.
7. Wright, J. Edward (2000). The Early
History Of Heaven. Oxford University
Press. p. 155.
8. Wright 2000, pp. 55–6
9. Wright 2000, p. 201
10. Selley, Richard C.; Cocks, L. Robin M.;
Plimer, Ian R., eds. (2005). "Biblical
Geology". Encyclopedia of Geology. 1.
Amsterdam: Elsevier. p. 253 – via Gale
Virtual Reference Library.
11. Applebaum, Wilbur (2009). "Astronomy
and Cosmology: Cosmology". In Lerner, K.
Lee; Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth. Scientific
Thought: In Context. 1. Detroit: Gale.
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External links
Another demonstration of the
complexity of observed orbits when
assuming a geocentric model of the
solar system
 Geocentric Perspective animation of the
Solar System in 150AD
Ptolemy’s system of astronomy
The Galileo Project – Ptolemaic System

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